In My Life
by CrazyCatie
Summary: Prequel-Sequel to Any Time at All.  A.J. is all grown up, and her life is totally as she planned.  But when something she DIDN'T plan happens, she turns to her old friends to get her though.  And in this, she learns the true story of her grandmother.
1. Lovers and Friends

**And so we meet again.**

**I have grown up and my writing has matured SO much over the course of my fanfiction history, but I will always look back on Any Time at All as my favorite project. It was carefree, light, and it didn't make me think too much. I was free to be myself, and A.J. became me, in a sense, because of that. More than anything, that is why I'm returning to it now. I know there were several of you that felt like I'd be ruining the story by making a sequel, but I just couldn't let A.J.'s story go. That's why, instead of making this a full on sequel where A.J. goes back in time again, we're going to focus on Maggie Mae's story, told through the insightful, though rather biased, eyes of John Lennon. Chapter one, anybody? Fuck yes.**

Five years.

Five years, five months, twenty days, and three hours, to be exact. That's how long it had been since I'd last seen the four boys that I spent a few life-changing months with back when I was seventeen years old. I talked to them weekly on the phone, but lately I had stopped calling. I knew I had to move on, because life was urging me to.

Things that have changed? God, I don't even know where to begin…

I guess there's college. I graduated this month from Northwestern with a degree in English, and a minor in Music. Pretty ridiculous, I know. What can you do with that? But I've always thought that the best things come from the unexpected, from your gut feeling. And so I went with my instincts, followed through with my love for music, and started writing.

I wrote my first novel while I was still in school. It was about heartbreak, the moving on that comes after it, but never forgetting. That was the important part, the message throughout the entire thing; you must never forget your first love, no matter how much it kills you to think of him. I showed the finished project to my Creative Writing professor, who told me it was shit and would never sell. Not that I was expecting anything, but that fucking hurt. So I literally burned the manuscript before anyone else could read it. The story, all three hundred forty-one pages, sits on my hard drive now, and when I scroll through my documents I try not to look at it.

What else? I guess there's Des. He proposed last month after graduation. Like, literally, RIGHT after graduation. He drove into the city, took me out to Bennigan's, and that's where it all went down. I still wore my graduation cap when I threw my arms around him, my body wracking with sobs.

As a matter of fact, I didn't stop crying for a while after that. I kept looking down at my hand, wondering how the fuck I had managed to forget about someone I swore was my soulmate, and thinking about how little closure I had provided myself with in the past few years. Everything in my life seemed open ended, as though I could jump right back into any stage with ease. My novel, still written and waiting for editing. Ringo, who I still talked to and always avoided The Conversation with. Des, who got his 'yes' but still was in love with a girl who could never completely love him back. Everything was just fucked up.

May has always been my favorite month of the year. This May, I just wish it would be winter again. That way I could stuff myself with comfort foods and hibernate for a few months, escaping everything. And as I sit here, in my parent's laundry room, slumped against a wall, I realize that even as I reflect on the past five years, my thoughts are bitter. Cold. Lacking emotion. Everything has been great—no, fuck that—everything has been PERFECT. Just what I dreamed. Northwestern? Shit. Engaged to Des? Just like everybody thought.

So what was wrong?

I pulled out my phone from my pocket gingerly, not even looking at the screen as I pressed speed dial number 9. The keys on my phone were starting to get a little hard from lack of use, seeing as I was avoiding the population as a whole these days. Who the fuck could blame me, though? People suck ass. Like, I'm not even trying to be all cynical and emo and I'm-better-than-everyone-else, I'm serious. They literally suck ass. It's fucking nasty, man. That's all I'm saying.

"'Ello?"

I sighed, leaning my head against the wall. It, of course, was pounding and throbbing and felt near explosion. That was probably from all that crying I had been doing earlier. "It's me," I say, my voice rough and scratchy from lack of use. The words come out in barely a whisper, and he probably has to strain to hear what I'm saying.

"A.J.? Sorry, it's just…you know, haven't heard from you in a while."

He's worried, I can tell. I have to think deeply to remember the purpose of me calling, and for a few seconds I panic because I can't recall. Then I looked down in my lap, where the pad of paper and pen sit, and I remembered.

"Right. About that…" I squeezed my eyes shut tightly, breathing in and trying to calm myself down before I start crying again. Earlier, I had been unable to stop for several hours. "I'm sorry, Paul, but can I talk to John? Please, it's urgent."

There was a slight hesitation, and then he muttered, "Yeah, no problem." I heard rustling, the low mumbling of male voices, a brief spurt of what I supposed to be their television, and then his voice came on the line.

"What the fuck do you want now?"

I drew a quick breath in, his harsh tone not completely unexpected but still hurtful all the same. I struggled for another moment to remember why I was bothering putting myself through this, and then I spoke, my voice weaker than I remembered it being.

"I need you to tell me something."

Apparently, he can hear something in my voice, something different. Maybe it's the misery I've been trying to hide (very successfully, might I say) from the world for so long. Or maybe it's that choked up, throaty sound that you make just before you cry that he was hearing. In any case, his breathing became more gentle and I could almost hear the change of his facial expression. "Huh?"

I tried to clear my head, to form the most clear, concise question I could. Most of all, I tried to tell him what happened. Why I was so sad, and why I was reflecting back on how my life had turned out with such judgmental eyes. But I couldn't bring myself to do it, so instead this is what came out:

"Can you tell me her story?"

Of course, this was John's answer: "What story? Are you high or something?"

I flicker of annoyance crossed my face, and even though I knew he couldn't see me I imagined that he had a look of satisfaction on his. Anything I didn't like, he did. Just because. It had been like that between us since day one, and when I found out that John was my grandfather…well, you could say that I was a little bit perturbed. But just a bit.

"Maggie Mae. The story of her…and you. And my mother."

Sometimes, I think it's hard for John to grasp that he has a daughter. He probably has tons of daughters, now that I think about it, but him finding out that the one girl he KNEW without a doubt that he loved had his child…I think it hurt him pretty bad. And denial was just part of that hurt.

"A.J…why do you want to know that all of a sudden?" he asked, his tone tired sounding. He didn't want to tell me, but he would. He fucking owed it to me. As a matter of fact…he NEEDED to tell me, simply because I had never asked before. Grandparents do that sort of thing all the time. Not that I really considered John Lennon to be my grandfather. That was just a bit TOO twisted for my liking, even though it was the truth.

I swallowed, still considering the answer to his question. "Because…" Tell him, my brain urged. Now is the time.

But was it really? I mean, if I told him the reason NOW, would he want to go on? If he learned the truth about my grandmother—that she could never, ever tell me this story herself—would he want it known? No, I don't think so. Not for a second.

"Because as my grandpa—" I could practically hear his wince through the receiver "—you have a duty to tell me how I came to be. Even if you don't know the entire story…I'm sure the others could help you. And me, too, from what Papa has told me."

Papa, the man I had been raised to know as my true grandfather, told me all kinds of stories about my grandma back in her young days. Before I came back from the sixties, he happened to leave out all the little sidestories that she told him about her days with the boys, but now? He doesn't hold back anything. Some things that he says make me sad, like when he talks about Maggie Mae's and John's wild, angry, violent fights. Some things make me laugh, like all the little anecdotes that she shared about George's blustering ways with girls. Other things made me wonder. Why had he never bothered to tell my mother all of these stories? Why had they never shared with her the truth?

The night before last, I had visited my Papa. He was sitting in his little, cottage style house, rocking in his chair next to the fireplace, book in hand, just like he had always been. This time, however, tears had shone brightly in his eyes, he had taken my hand.

"Tell her," he had said. "You know the story better than I do."

And by 'her', I had assumed that he meant my mother. And by 'the story'…well, that wasn't all that hard to guess at. But I couldn't find the right way, and I realized when I was trying to write it all down that I was missing huge chunks of the story, too.

And so here I was.

There was a long pause on both ends of the line, as I thought about Papa and my mother and my grandma and the boys, who were probably listening to every word of John's side of the conversation right now. John was most likely considering telling me, probably trying to come up with some sort of deal.

"Fine," he finally said. I smiled hugely, letting my head fall back into the wall with a satisfying thump. I couldn't BELIEVE he had given in so easy. Honestly, that was totally out of chara— "Under one condition."

Motherfucker.

"What?" I asked impatiently.

"When I'm done, you come back for a visit." I didn't say anything for a moment, so he continued. "It sounds rather pathetic for me to ask it of you…but it's not me that's been wanting it, if you know what I mean. He just doesn't want to ask himself."

Right. Ringo. He'd been hinting at it for a long time—about four years, actually—and I wasn't exactly in the dark about his continued feelings for me. But as part of my pact to move on, I had never granted him with such things. I don't ever want him to get the wrong idea…that I could come back there, live in his time, and we could live happily ever after.

That's a hard thing to say to someone you love so deeply, so usually I just avoid the topic in general.

"John…" I began, shaking my head slightly. "You know I can't."

"Why not?" he fired right back.

"Des. We're getting married. I can't just…you know."

"Fuck that. You don't really want to be with him, and we both know it."

It was the age old Desmond Debate happening all over again. The one where John acted like he knew everything about me, and that I knew nothing. And apparently I wanted to end everything with Des and move back 'home' and be with Ringo. Because John knows everything, right? So therefore he's always right.

Ha.

"I do, actually. And we're not discussing this right now." In my desperation, I give in rather easily to John's end of the bargain. I have limited time, and I know how long it can take him to spit out a few words, so I simply agree to his deal. Even though I don't have much of an intention to keep it. "But fine, whatever, I'll come for a visit."

John exhaled. "Good. Excellent, actually."

"Well, get on with it then!"

"Young lady, don't take that tone with me!" he said in a mock-elderly voice, even though we're probably around the same age right now. Maybe he's a year older or so. Sometimes I forgot how slow time traveled back then, and how fast it traveled here.

"Alright. Where do I begin?"

"At the beginning, I suppose," I answered.

"Fine, then. The beginning. It all started…fuck, when was it? Must have been in Hamburg, I was too hammered the whole time to really know the date. But I'll tell ya, if there was one thing I remember about that trip, it was Maggie Mae Fitzpatrick."

**And so it begins. Alright, so I just realized that this starts in a very similar way as In Spite of All the Danger. With the whole going back in time to tell a story type of thing. However, this story will be much shorter, and unlike In Spite there is a very good reason that A.J. wants to know these things about her grandmother. I haven't really said it yet, but if you wanna go ahead and have a guess, I haven't made it too hard. Nothing THAT twisted. :^) Did you all miss George? I know I did. **

**Okay, make me happy, will ya? Review, please?**


	2. These Places Have Their Moments

**I think I might have maybe confused you guys a little. This story isn't so much about A.J. and John—okay, fuck that, it IS about John, just not in the usual way—as it is about Maggie Mae, her grandmother. And it's actually told through HER eyes, in first person, as opposed to story-telling. Even though that's how I set it up to seem…I just wanted you all to know that REALLY this how it's gonna be. Alright…read on, friends!**

Val's dark eyes slipped past the boys as they stepped into the club. They wore varying expressions of nervousness, a slick sheen of sweat reflecting off each of their foreheads. Heavy heads of hair sat on top of the boys' heads, and one had made a habit of constantly flicking it out of his eyes.

"They call him the Cute One," she rasped, her voice thick with smoke and alcohol. She indicated a young man, probably a year or two younger than me, with wide, sleepy hazel eyes. He had a look of innocence about him, yet his sloping walk suggested otherwise.

I nodded slowly, looking at my sister for the reason she was telling me about him. But Val seemed to have an ulterior motive.

"That one right there? Name's George, but he don't say much. Quiet One, see?" She raised her eyebrows, waiting for me to digest this.

Simple enough.

The Quiet One looked the most nervous of all. His hands shook very noticeably, and underneath his thick, black eyebrows, dark chocolate eyes darted around him. He continuously glanced at the boy in front of him, as though he were afraid of running into him and taking a great stumble.

"Who's that?" I asked, motioning towards the first boy in line.

Val strained her neck to see, biting her full, red lower lip. "Ah. That's the Mysterious One, as the girls are callin' him. See them shades? And how his hair kinda hangs in his face? Reckon he REEKS of mystery, yeah?"

Just as she was saying this, the boy—this one looked more like a man than the others—removed his sunglasses, revealing a large black eye. He was extremely attractive, this Mysterious One. He looked slightly removed, almost shy, but he couldn't have been. Musicians liked attention, didn't they? Why else would they get up in the spotlight?

Two guys hung at the bottom of the stage, looking deep in conversation. One, whose features contained beady eyes and a long nose, was talking animatedly, his brow furrowed. He looked frustrated beyond belief. The other, whose face seemed simpler and softer, was taking this abuse, nodding without speaking.

"Them?" I asked Val, indicating them with the hand that held my drink.

Valerie smiled, as though she had just been waiting for this. "Pete. Pete Best." She let out a cackle of wild, devilish laughter. "We call him the Magnificent One." She laughed once again, feeling this was the most hilarious statement of the night.

I frowned deeply, too caught up in my thoughts about the Magnificent One that I didn't even bother to ask her about the Unnamed One.

I forgot, that is, until the music started.

"'Ello, there," said a tall, broad-shouldered man. I recognized him as the Yeller. "What're you all here for?" He peered around at the audience, his face dead-set in a puzzled frown.

"FOR YOU, LENNON!" a girl with a nasally, high-pitched voice called out. Immediately following her came a loud round of cat-calls and jeering from a large portion of the male audience. Lennon didn't seem to notice.

He blinked, leaning into the microphone once again. "For…who?" he asked faintly, glancing back at his bandmate that was labeled the Cute One and exchanging a mystified glance.

"LENNON!" the crowed bellowed back at him.

He pointed to himself, saying nothing.

"LENNON!" they screamed, even louder this time.

"Paulie," Lennon commented, turning around but still keeping his mouth to the mic, "I reckon their calling to me."

"Could only suppose they want a show," Paul answered him, shrugging. The audience roared its approval.

Lennon grinned widely, turning back to the audience. "Are you all ready to have a great night?" he holler-asked, throwing up his hands and doing a demented little jig around the stage.

I could help but giggle at this. I was among the many that shouted back at him, anxious for the performance. Laughing, he stopped doing his dance, grabbed his guitar, and jumped into a song. His bandmates warily followed suit.

Not gonna lie, I was completely transfixed. The way his voice rasped sometimes, and others it was smooth, melodic, fervent. I was in love before I ever knew him.

The band went on break, and I was finally able to peel my eyes away from them.

"So," Val asked rather conceitedly, leaning back into the bar, "they're pretty gear, yeah?"

I rolled my eyes. She was acting as though she opened the whole fucking thing. Just cause I'd never been there before. I wanted to lie SO bad. Just be like 'No, they were rather grotty, actually.' But I honestly couldn't.

"That was the music of angels," I informed her, my eyes still wide with the wonderment of it all.

Valerie snorted. "Ahhh, shut it." She then smacked down a shot, throwing her head back and letting out a rather high pitched scream of joy.

Oh, my sister.

We continued to chat for a little while, Val's face getting redder and redder and her voice getting louder and louder. The black dress that she wore on her thin, pale frame was started to dip lower, and she was getting a little bit freer about where she put her hands…if you know what I mean.

I turned away from this, a sick feeling in my stomach. It wasn't that Val was more wild than me…she was just more frisky than me.

And, okay, more wild than me. But fuck if I was gonna let that on to any of the men in this place.

I happened to glance down the row of bar stools, starting to get a little bored with the scenery. I wished that the band would just go up there again. They were magic; some of the best music I had ever heard. And it wasn't that their skill was out of the ordinary, it was that they had this certain charisma. This certain…something, I guess, about them.

"What choo starin' at?" a man shot at me, and I instantly raised my deep blue eyes. The lead singer of the band—the Unnamed One—was half-heartedly glaring at me. I guess I had sort of wandered off into my thoughts.

Now that I saw him up close, he looked different. Instead of a smooth, young face, I saw stubble, sweat, and bags under his eyes. And whereas his posture had been perfectly upright on the stage, he was slumped in his seat. Even better, he had a glass in his hand. Straight vodka.

My heart began to race.

"I…uhh…I was—um—s-sorry."

He raised his cigarette to his lips, took a puff, then flicked the ashes in a nearby tray. He leaned closer to me, and as he did I could see that the beady, near black eyes I had been so intently gazing at when he was on stage had a mischievous flicker to them.

"How bout that band?" he asked, a slight smirk raising on his lips.

Immediately, I turned scarlet. So he HAD seen me looking up at him with all the glory of a kid staring in the window of a toy shop. I have to admit, I WAS being a little overly-enthusiastic about them. They weren't God's gift or anything like that.

"Horrible," I managed to say. My mouth was incredibly dry at this point, so I took a swig of the beer that was in front of me.

Lennon chuckled, leaning even closer to me. "Who was it that broke the deal? That ugly ass guitarist? Or was it that fucking unibrow kid?"

With a sudden burst of confidence, I too leaned forward. "I'm pretty sure it was rhythm guitarist. He was just dreadful." I couldn't help the smile that slipped onto my lips. "I heard he's a drunk, too."

"Aha! The secret's out." He stood up, closing the gap between us, and stood in front of me. "Wanna come home with me tonight?"

Instantly, my intense liking for this guy plummeted. I was never a fan of direct bluntness, perhaps because that was MY style. My nostrils flared, and a little bit of the pink that had previously colored my cheeks returned. Oh. HELL. No.

I curled my index finger, gesturing for him to come closer. He did, bringing with him the sultry smell of alcohol, smoke, and sweat. "Not a chance," I whispered in his ear.

Even though the best view of him I had was the thick auburn hair matted to the back of his neck, I could feel him smiling. Then, his head turned and it was HIS turn to be mysterious.

"That's too bad…I like that color on you." And then he straightened up and walked away, apparently unaware of how breathless he had left me. He hopped back on stage, stomping on his cigarette, and turned to consult with The Cute One and the Mysterious One.

I glanced down at the dress Val had given to me; it was dark red, with little straps and clingy material. I had always been a little bit too skinny for my age, and I never gotten past the height I graduated eighth grade with. But the dress hid the protruding angles of my ribs (which usually stuck out obnoxiously). My skin looked even paler than usual in the dim light of the club, and the dress clashed with it magnificently. By now my face had gone completely white, and my freckles popped out.

I was startled out of my thoughts by the return of that familiar voice.

"This second half is dedicated to a girl out there, in the hopes that she might change her mind." He smiled devilishly, and all his friends exchanged confused glances behind their instruments. The Cute One (or Paulie, as Lennon had called him) rolled his eyes.

Val, who apparently had been listening to mine and Lennon's conversation the entire time, nudged me excitedly. "Maggie Mae, you lucky bitch! I slept with Paul, and he didn't so much as acknowledge me!"

I sighed, taking my eyes away from her. Of COURSE Valerie slept with one of them. It would be unethical if she didn't, right?

"What's he called, that one? The singer." I pointed at him, and then looked at Val. She followed my finger, then grinned when she saw who I was indicating.

"John Lennon. The Smart One, the Witty One, whatever you wanna call him." She leaned closer to me, as John had done earlier. "I heard he's a real devil." She burst into another round of cackling laughter, throwing her head back and shaking.

John Lennon, I thought, still staring at him. John Lennon.

…**is a man-whore.**

**Sorry, I had to. But really, he was great, la di da, whatever. Kay, wanna tell me what you guys think of this? Love it? Hate it? Want me to stop writing all together? It's completely in your guy's hands, so do with it what you will. Review!**


	3. Not For Better

**Hey everybody! I started this chapter a while ago, and I only just finished it. Just haven't felt like writing in a while, I suppose. Oh well! I'm back now, and that's what matters. Eh, George? :^) Enjoy!**

Originally, Val and I came to Hamburg for the same reason; to hear the music. Music had always been somewhat of an obsession of mine, which I guess stemmed from my older sister. But as soon as we left Ireland, all Val could talk about was how she was going to be a new person wherever we went. She would be a modern women; speaking her mind, drinking, smoking, being wild with men. Back in the old country, it wasn't so easy to be like that. The only girls that publicly did such things were immediately labeled 'whore'. And, in my opinion, for good reason.

Apparently it was different in the east, or so said Valerie. She was convinced that the place to start her new life was London, and after that didn't work out, the place was Hamburg. I, of course, was always up for whatever Val threw at me, but going to Hamburg didn't take a lot of convincing on my part.

We had one major issue: we were poor as shit. We had always been very low middle class back home, but after we had spent the little money our parents had spared us and our lifesavings on GETTING here, it was up to us to provide for ourselves. And for two women twenty one and younger, that is not a very easy task, let me tell you.

That is how I became known to the Hamburg locals as Dirty, No-Good, Robbin' Maggie Mae.

We lived in a small flat (featuring a bedroom, a kitchen/living space, and a bathroom) with barely any room to walk in, and whenever I wanted to practice my music, I would have to head over the tavern on the corner. The very one I was at when I heard the boys playing for the first time.

I went into that place, the owner hardly even looking up at me as I entered, the morning after I met the fabulous John Lennon. Val was home, too hungover to even move, so I was completely alone to my thoughts this morning.

I put my fingers to the keys, pressing down softly and savoring the rush of music that breezed past my ears. Truly, this was heaven. To be able to sit down, gush out a tune, and feel like you're right where you belong. Before I knew it, my fingers were dancing across the ivory and playing me a little melody. It was jumpy and happy, something my mother had taught me on our old out of tune organ.

"My grandfather used to play me that."

I let out a little gasp, my fingers slamming down hard as I jumped at least a foot in the air out of surprise. I wasn't expecting anybody other than my usual audience (Okay, the usual audience was just the owner. But still.) to be listening to me.

I turned slowly to find a boy roughly my age, maybe a little younger, standing behind me. He had his arms crossed over his chest and was leaning into the piano. He looked a little egotistical, like I should swoon merely at the sight of him.

"Really?" I asked, eyeing him over and feeling a brief spark of recognition. Where did I know him from?

"Aye," he muttered, taking a step towards me and casting his large, sleepy eyes downward. He glanced back up through thick, black lashes, a hint of a smile playing on his lips. "You sound like my grandfather, too."

"Irish," I clarified, thinking that if he was trying to flirt with me, he was doing a horrible job and should rely solely on his looks in the future. That, or at least perfect his charms before attacking an unsuspecting and rather unwilling victim.

He nodded, picking his chin up a bit when he noticed my dull, bored tone. "I don't think I introduced myself, did I?"

"No."

"Ah, well, right then. My name's John." His face was completely smooth as he said it, not even hesitating. "John Lennon."

That's when I remembered where I had seen this guy.

"Oh, really? And that accent…Liverpool?"

He smiled widely, revealing surprisingly straight—though slightly flawed—white teeth. He laced his fingers through his suspenders, leaning forward a bit on his toes and changing his voice. "Heavens no!" he cried jovially in a mock posh tone. "Born and raised Londoner."

I bit my lip. "Right, right. London." I wondered why John Lennon's bandmate wanted me to think I was him. It wasn't like we were ever going to meet again, or like John had anything on this guy in any department. "So, _John_, why are you here?"

The guy must not have heard the little stress I put on his name, because it didn't wipe the concrete smile off his face. Any other girl probably would have died at the attention from someone so attractive. All I felt was a burning curiosity and a smidge of disgust at his lie.

"I've gotta band," he answered coolly, dropping his hands to his sides and looking away from me. As though I wasn't worthy of his gaze. "We're pretty good, I suppose. Me? I'm the lead singer." He arranged his features to look modest. "Nothing special, though."

"Oh, no. I know about your band," I said, frowning leaning away from him. I paused, indulgently watching his face fall. "Yeah, I was here last night. Remember, we had that great conversation? My place or yours?"

He licked his lips quickly, eyes darting to the piano bench, lingering there for a moment, and then hastily meeting my stare again. "Oh! Yeah, well, the darkness tends to make me look a little different."

"Taller?" I asked, raising my eyebrows.

His furrowed, hazel eyes hardening into a glare. "The same height, actually."

I shook my head in wonder. "Wow. And here's me thinking that men weren't into dying their hair. Learn something every day, don't cha?"

He nodded, eyes softening into saucers again. "True, true. I, John Lennon, DO dye my hair. And I wax my eyebrows. And—" He smiled shyly, looking down. When he averted his gaze back up to mine, his face was solemn. "And I find myself deeply attracted to men."

"Men," I repeated.

"Men," he confirmed. "Specifically, this really charming bloke. Real easy on the eyes. Paul McCartney? Ever heard of him?"

Ah. Yes. _That _was his name.

"Hmm…maybe. I'm pretty sure he slept with my sister."

"Wouldn't surprise me. I hear he gets a bird once a night, without fail. Sometimes twice."

"If the rumors are true."

"Aren't they all?"

"Doubt it. I heard this one that he likes to impersonate you."

"What? Me?"

"Yeah, John Lennon."

"Did someone call?"

At that, both Paul and I looked over the door, where a rather rumpled looking John was standing. He looked the same as last night, only his hair was a little more ruffled and the sweat that had shone off his milky white skin was now gone. He wore tight leather trousers and a white tee shirt that was slightly askew.

He regarded us as though we were an alien species. "Paulie, c'mon now. You just excused a lady from our place of dwelling and you're already chatting another one up?" He shook his head, strolling towards the stage where we stood. "Now that's not very classy."

"No," I agreed, "it isn't, Paulie."

"Well, then. As I can see I'm not welcome." He leapt off the stage, landing dangerously close to John. "I bid you adieu, Miss…"

"Maggie Mae," I offered.

"Til we meet again, Miss Maggie Mae." And with that he strode gallantly out of the tavern, leaving behind the sweet smell of his cologne mingled with dried sweat, and a certain air of awkwardness between me and his friend.

John stared at me, his expression light and unreadable. "Charming, isn't he?"

I nodded. "Shame it wasn't he who talked to me last night, or I might have gotten to see where you live, John Lennon."

He laughed shortly, a rather screechy and unnatural sound. It didn't seem to fit his face. He looked like the sort of person that never really laughed—the sort who simply told the joke and smiled arrogantly as it went over so well.

A cocky bastard, in other words.

"You know," he started, pointing at me with a long, thin finger. "I've got a friend who could use a bit of humor in his life right now."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Thanks for telling me."

He smiled. "See, he slept with this bird last night."

"Oh, wow. Is he okay?"

He rolled his eyes at my humor. "It was his first time. And, being a mate of mine, I…well, I was there." He hesitated for a moment. "As well as a few other guys."

I felt a pang for this friend of John's. "Poor kid."

"Yeah, well, he's sulking like no fucking tomorrow right now, and I figure that if you go over there and cheer him up, everything will be fine and dandy for tomorrow's set. Sound good?" He gave me a thumbs up and a hopeful smile. As though that alone would sell me.

"You hardly even know me," I pointed out.

"I like to make new friends."

"You tried to get me to sleep with you last night."

"Don't act like you're the first."

I shot him a withering look. "How do I know you're not just trying to lure me over to your apartment, or park bench—where ever it is that you live."

He shrugged. "Why buy the cow when I could get the milk for free?"

That, actually, was some logic that I could trust. There a million girls in this town—ones prettier than me, ones looser than me, and ones a hell of a lot more worth it than me—so why did I think I was so special all of a sudden? If there was one thing that I had learned in my life, it was that nobody treats you like you're special unless they want something. And I honestly had nothing to give.

"Sorry, but I have to go." I searched for some excuse in my head. "My sister will be expecting me back sometime soon, and I still have to…" I let my voice trail off, knowing that he didn't give a fuck. I was just some girl that he met in some bar on some night in some town. I was just a meaningless memory.

He shrugged, looking a bit annoyed with his wasted effort. He sat down at the bar, ordered himself a beer, and turned away from me. As though our conversation never existed.

Something about this annoyed me tremendously. Who was he to forget ME? As though he was better than me. As though he mattered more than me.

"It's a little early for a beer, isn't it?" I muttered as I swept past him, snatching my bag from the stage and narrowing my eyes a little.

"Excuse me?" He turned to face me.

"It's nine o'clock, and you're drinking? That's decent," I barked back at him swiftly, my voice raising before I could stop it.

"Who ever said I was decent?" he replied, throwing his arms out to the side and letting them fall to his waist with a slap.

"No one. Absolutely no one." I blatantly looked him over. "And no one ever will."

His eyes widened a bit, and I noticed how dark they were. Almost black. "Snarky bitch," he growled.

"Insolent bastard," I spat back.

He shook his head in a clear look of disgust, then turned away from me. Like I even cared what he thought. Like I even considered wanting to know him in the first place. I turned on my heel, clacking towards the door to the tavern angrily. When I was just about to the door, I heard:

"I'm a real prize. Just you wait, you'll see. I'm a real fucking prize."

I stopped at those words, the familiarity of them sloshing around in my head. I turned around, wondering if he was mocking me, then wondering how he had any way of knowing that I had spoken those very same words in a very different situation, once upon a time.

"You know, Lennon, I might find you a real interesting guy. That is, if I was even remotely interested."

I stayed in my spot long enough for him to glower up at me before pulling open the door and stepping out onto the bustling street. I felt exhilarated and sick, adrenaline pumped and guilty, and I badly needed a fix.

That was how I found myself taking the long route home, humming Danny Boy as I passed a fruit stand and mindlessly swiped two oranges before the owner could even put down his morning paper. I didn't mention John or Paul to Val when I got home.

Ha. Like they were so great.

**Okay. Well I didn't expect THAT to come out. No, seriously, this chapter was supposed to be just a short little conversation with Paul and then going back to the house to talk to Val, but apparently my mind had other plans. Personally, I quite enjoy seeing where my mind takes me when I just sit down and write. **

**Before I forget—I'm thinking of holding a poll on my profile. A NEW one, since I haven't had one in a while. Would you guys vote on it if it controlled the future of this story? You could tell me in one of those little things I like to call…a REVIEW.**


	4. These Memories

…**Hey guys. So. Um. This is the part where you DON'T kill me for not continuing the story the entire summer, despite me having nothing better to do. I mean, I'm sorry. But I was just so wrapped up in all the "coming of age" shit that usually goes on the summer before your sophomore year when you make the transition from freshman (AKA a loser) to not-quite-an-upperclassmen-but-not-a-freshma-either and it was just really stressful what with all the illegal doings and the drama with my friends and then I didn't have any inspiration to write for this because I wasn't really sure where I wanted to go with this and then all of a sudden school started and it was really hot and volleyball was hard and my classes almost made my mind fucking explode and then I was in love with this boy that I really shouldn't have been in love with and there was still the friend-drama and the illegal doings and just ugh. It's been a long five months. I almost feel as though I'm a different person.**

**Nooppppe, look at the size of that AN paragraph. Definitely the same old Catie. And the same old Catie isn't the same old Catie with her George. :^) Thanks for putting up with me guys, here's the chapter (finally):**

I stared at the wall opposite me, my chest rising and falling as the soothing sound of John's voice took me away. When he stopped speaking, the sound of his own breath the only thing filling my ear, I broke out of my trance.

"I'm confused," I said slowly, bringing my knees up to my chest and trying to ignore the sizeable spider that was lurking in the corner of the laundry room. "Did she like you, or not?"

John made a non-committal sound. "It was always hard to tell with her. She didn't wear her emotions on her face, like you. You two were different in that way." His tone was dreamy, almost happy. Almost, but not quite.

"Also," I continued, "with the whole…bar thing. Was she…I mean, she didn't, um, do a lot of things with a lot of people, did she?" Even to my own ears, the words were awkward sounding. Childish. As though I was fifteen again and talking about childbirth with my mom. A shudder than through me at the thought of that distant conversation.

"I don't understand," he answered flatly, the dream-like quality to his voice disappearing.

I heaved a sigh. "I guess what I'm trying to ask is if Maggie Mae—that is to say, my Gramma—if she was…loose in areas that certain people—men, I suppose—would appr—"

"You're asking if she was a slut?"

The vulgar word made me cringe, especially coming from my…grandfather. Fuck, I would never get used to that.

"Yeah. Yeah, that's what I'm asking."

I could almost feel his shrug, as though even if she _were _the biggest hoe around town, he wouldn't have given two shits. "She wasn't any free bird," he evenly, "but she wasn't no fuckin' prude, like yourself."

I scoffed at this, but didn't quite deny it. It was a claim backed up by a firm amount of evidence on his part. "I guess it doesn't matter," I mumbled, glaring at the spider again, daring it to come any closer to me.

"Hm."

We sat in silence for a while, both of us lost in our own thoughts. Finally, the silence was broken by a soft murmur in the background, and then John's own voice saying something back. He came back on the line within seconds.

"A.J.? I suppose George wants to talk to you."

I nodded, forgetting that he couldn't see me, but made no sound. I felt weak from the news I had heard earlier in the day, still not fully recovered. Before I began to get myself all worked up again, the distinctive voice of George Harrison filled the line.

"'Lo, A.J."

I felt myself smile, and I closed my eyes. Oh, George. How I missed that boy. I had to remind myself that I was probably older than the George I was talking to right now, that we both weren't teenagers and just learning about adulthood. "Hey."

"I just…I heard John talking to you. About Maggie Mae." His voice sounded nervous, not at all what I was accustomed to. The George I knew said what was on his mind without thinking, but he was generally sweet and could make me laugh at the simplest things.

I recalled the first real conversation I had with him, back when he told me about John and Maggie Mae—at that time he didn't know that she was my grandmother. I distinctly remembered him letting slip a person detail, something about him suspecting that he was in love with Maggie Mae all along, too. Instantly, I felt a pricking feeling that I couldn't quite identify, and I knew that if John wasn't willing to tell me her entire story, George would be.

Thank fucking Jesus for that, because there was only so much I could handle of John Lennon. And lemme tell ya, it wasn't a whole lot.

"Yeah?" I urged when he didn't continue. "What about it?"

There was just a moment of hesitation on his part before he said, "The next part of her story has more to do with me than John. So I'm going to tell you."

I wondered then if it was really George who knew her better than John. George who maybe…loved her more? But no, George Harrison would never get the girl over the 'sexy', secretive, dark, sensitive, rather fucked-up John Lennon. In my mind, it was rather ridiculous. Even before finding out he was my grandfather, I never found John even remotely good looking. George, however…well, look at him.

"Shoot," I said, eyes still closed and head still resting against the wall. I considered the fact that I should probably get off this dusty, spider-infested ground, but just the thought of going upstairs made my limbs tired.

"Where did John leave off?"

"Uh…something about meeting Paul at some tavern, then a little fight where she basically said she wasn't interested in him."

George thought for a moment, processing this. "Wow," he said softly, "it seems like so long ago. I guess it was even longer for you. It's history."

I cleared my throat, a little impatient. I didn't, in fact, have all day. And I had even less minutes on my phone. Who knew that calls to the sixties would jack your phone bill up so much?

"Right. The story." He, too, cleared his throat a bit, and there was a bit of crackling over the line. Well, of course there was. We were an ocean, several hundred miles of land, and about four decades away from each other. Fuck, the fact that we were talking at all was completely impossible.

Which brought up an interesting question.

"George—wait. One quick, unrelated question."

"Huh?"

"Um. When are you right now?"

"When?"

I laughed a little bit at that, because it was kind of an odd phrasing. "Yeah. Like…you were talking about history before. Right now, you're in my history, both personally and physically. I just wanted to know exactly how far in history you are."

There was a pause in his breathing during my speech. I had to admit, there was something a little profound about it. WHEN are you? It wasn't so much a question about the year, but the point in history. The position of events, if you will.

"Well," George answered, his voice a little distant, "it's the fourth straight day that Ringo hasn't gotten out of bed. This hasn't happened in a few months, but in _history _I'd pinpoint it as…" He searched around for a good time, something more meaningful than a year. "Oh! We met Bob Dylan a few weeks back. Does that help?"

My stomach churned. So these weren't my innocent boys, the ones whose only drugs were booze, women, and rock n' roll. No, these were the men of 1965, full of giggles and silly songs with references to pot and the start of the drug craze. I wondered how many times I had talked to them in the past as the post-Dylan Beatles, or even the acid-Beatles. It's not like I would ever be able to tell; the boys still treated me just the same.

Still, I wasn't sure what to be more upset over; the fact that the guys were now getting high regularly, or that Ringo was still pining after me. Me, the girl that had heartlessly left him and was going to get married soon. John was sure to announce that to him at any time, and God knew if he would be able to _shit _then, let alone get out of bed.

"Oh."

"Oh?"

I rolled my eyes. "You know what I'm talking about."

I could feel the guiltiness in his silence.

"Don't think I haven't read my fair share of Beatles books; I know you enjoyed it. And if you liked it, you might as well fess up to it, buddy."

George chuckled a little bit. "We talk about liking it in books? Isn't that sort of…illegal?"

Ha. As though smoking a little bit of weed was the most illegal thing they had done in their lives. God only fucking knew.

"Yeah, well…enough of that. I was just wondering to what George Harrison I was speaking to." I said the words before I even thought them. Sure, they were true enough, but I didn't want George to know that I missed him as a kid. He was the kind of sweet that you couldn't conjure up in a novel, the kind of funny that a humorless person longed to write, the kind of shy that was outgoing enough not to be noticed, but introverted enough to be significant. He was truly like a brother to me.

"I'm always the same George," he murmured. "A little bit of pot isn't going to—"

"Are you going to tell me about Maggie Mae, or not?" I interrupted, letting my annoyance slip into my tone.

Nothing, silence. I screwed up my eyes, trying to picture exactly what George looked like when I last saw him. The only vision I could see, however, was his sad eyes as I turned my back on him, vowing to never return to the last again. There was an awful pang in my heart then, and I had to open my eyes to get the image of him out of my head.

Except it wouldn't go away.

Eyes wide, chest heaving up and down, I stared straight ahead of me, realizing that I was no longer in my parent's laundry room.

His mouth hung open, his dark eyes were widened. His hair was a bit shaggier, his face a little bit more mature, but other than that it was the same old George.

"Holy fuck," we said at the same time.

We continued to stare at each other, and I began to take in my surroundings. I was no longer at the old little house in Liverpool, but in some posh London hotel. We were alone in a hotel room, the bathroom door closed with just a bit of light seeping from under the door. There were two beds, each unmade and messy, and no personal items to be found except a small baggie that contained something green and crumpled.

I looked away from it, my heart pounding out of my chest, and focused in on George again. Without thinking, I threw myself into his arms, and he clasped his hands tightly around my back. He smelled like cigarettes and aftershave, just as I had remembered.

"I can't believe you came back," he muttered into my hair.

"Believe me," I breathed, "no one's as surprised as me."

That was when I should have realized something was wrong. I had just teleported back in time…that's was fucking normal. But still, my overemotional mind wouldn't let me think anything but ecstatic thoughts.

George opened his mouth to speak again, but before he could the door to the bathroom opened slowly. I found my eyes drawn up, up, up to a slender figure, about the height of your average female, standing in the doorway. His hair was long, golden brown, flopping down over his empty eyes thickly. He wore boxers and a white tee-shirt, which hung from his frame in a way that made me realize he hadn't worn anything else in quite a while.

Taking a deep breath, I slowly rose to my feet. He took a step forward, the light falling on his gaunt face and making me cringe.

"A.J.," he whispered, his voice husky and devoid of the quirky joyfulness that I had once known it to be.

With a sick twist of my gut, I took in the rest of his features in the light. He looked sick, greasy, mean. With a resounding pain in my heart, I realized something then and there:

This was not the Ringo I had fallen in love with.

**Okay guys, I know that was a rather pointless chapter. I know. But I needed to get something up to assure you all that I hadn't give up on A.J.'s story completely. What she needs, in fact, is closure, something that (looking back) I realize now that I didn't give her and Ringo in the last story. I actually wasn't going to have her go back to the past at all, but I think it's necessary. Alright, I think that's all. Hope everyone is enjoying the fall (God and George know I am :^) ) aaaaaaaaand I guess I'll talk to you soon! **

**Reviewwwww!**


	5. Something New

**HI FANFICTION. It's me. Catie. I haven't updated the story in a while…and to be honest, it's likely that is because of one simple fact: it just doesn't feel like Any Time at All. Silly, naïve me thought that writing a sequel type thing would be FAR more easier than the writing of the original story. Alas…no. And even though I've been in a mood to just write and write and write and write and write lately, I haven't really sat down and said, "Right now, I'm going to update In My Life." Because I miss fanfiction, I really do, but for whatever reason this story isn't speaking to me the way Any Time or I'm a Loser or In Spite did (speaking of In Spite, we just put up the second to last chapter and the last chapter is all written and ready to go, so if you haven't checked that out…it's worth it, I'll just say that).**

**And, because I've been nostalgic of fanfiction lately and I really do WANT to want to write for In My Life, I decided to write a multi-paragraph AN and try and get AJ back into starting up some ruckus with the boys, just for old time's sake. So, if you guys will give me another chance (if not for me, then for George? :^) he's making a comeback) then I will NOT add you to the list of people to push down my well (the well is making a comeback also). Alright. Um. Bye.**

"Ringo!" I exclaimed, taking a step back and drawing closer to George. I could tell the boy's eyes were fixed on the back of my head, wanting me to turn around and communicate some silent message to me. After I had tried so hard to alter history in a positive way, this was the way I did it.

Ringo said nothing, instead moving to the little baggie I had spotted earlier and turning is back to me.

"I'm not even going to pretend this isn't fucked up," he said, his voice flat. Dull. Monotonous. "God knows how you even got here."

I finally looked behind me at George, who wore the expression one might wear if they were witnessing an entire bag of puppies being drowned. A small voice inside my head whispered to me that it might not be a good idea to be in a room with a deranged Ringo with no one to defend me but George, Almighty Leader of the Tooth-Pick Arms.

And then Ringo turned around, a blunt between two fingers and a lighter clutched in the other hand. Scratch that, a deranged _high_ Ringo. Fucking great! He snapped the lighter to life, held it to the end of the rolled paper, and the only sound in the room was the light crinkle as the end of the paper shriveled into ash.

It was all just a bit too awkward for me.

"Where's John?" I asked suddenly, wanting – no, NEEDING – to get out of the room.

Ringo closed his eyes, smoke swirling around his face. "So you'd rather spend time with your mortal enemy – sorry, your grandfather," he snorted in mockery, "than with me?" His voice was thick and he swayed where he stood. The sight of him made me sick.

I was saved the uncomfortable task of answering that question by the banging of the door. It slammed open without so much as a knock and there stood Paul, just as beautiful as always. His hair was a bit longer, his face a bit more matured, but other than that he looked heartwarmingly familiar.

"I thought I heard that voice," he beamed, radiating some sort of energy about the dingy, curtained room. "John!" he called over his shoulder in a mock-posh accent. "John, you simply MUST come in here. Your grandbaby has just arrived and she looks right famished."

He moved swiftly across the room, and with a relieved laugh I threw myself into his arms. "Paulie! It's great to see you!"

"And you, too, my dear!" He held me at arm's length by my forearms, examining me quickly. "It seems that you've gained a little weight – in all the right places, may I add – and you've dressed up for us!" At that, I looked down at my attire (sweats and a tee shirt...I mean, c'mon! I was doing fucking laundry!) and gave him a little shove in the shoulder.

"I never got the chance to tell you – I really enjoyed that song you wrote for me?"

"Which one?" His eyes sleepy eyes sparkled, and that earned him another shove.

"You're a prick."

"And yet it is you," he indicated me, "that comes running back to ME." He gestured broadly to him and George, as though 'Me' were some entity that involved the two of them.

I noticed how he didn't include Ringo in that sweep of his hand, and apparently Ringo noticed, too. The look he sent the back of Paul's head said it all, as did the long hit off of his blunt.

"Which brings us full circle," George said, speaking up for the first time. "How are you even here?"

"I don't know," I admitted, running a hand through my hair and over my face. It was all a bit overwhelming, to be honest. There was George, cute as could be. Ringo…just…what the fuck happened there? Train wreck pretty much summed up that situation. (I chose not to think about the fact that I had been the one who had yanked the stakes out of the railroad ((metaphorically speaking, of course)) as that was very helpful for not letting myself dwell on his whole issue too much.) And Paul was just adorable and the same vessel of energy as always. And John…

"Well, well, well," he said, announcing his presence from the doorway. "It's you."

Ah, I knew he would show up soon enough.

John walked into the room slowly, kind of reminding me of a villain from a James Bond type of movie, just soaking up all the tension in the room. Of course, being John, he had to address the elephant. He stepped up next to Ringo, nudged him sharply, and then pointed to me.

"Eh, what did I tell ya Ringsy old pal?" He stole his cig, putting it to his lips and inhaling. He held it in for a few seconds, then breathed out without the slightest trace of a cough. Talent. "I told ye she'd come back for ya!"

That was met with utter silence.

Then, Ringo gave me the dirtiest look he could conjure, spun on his heel and headed right back into the bathroom. A moment later the shower burst to life.

John grinned at our stony faces. "What do you guys say? Let's steal all his underwear and throw it off the balcony for the fans!"

For a second, the entire predicament of me even being there and Ringo having a tantrum and John being a complete dick were forgotten. I pointed at the window. "There are fans out there?"

"Yep," Paul chirped, moving to the curtains and peeking out. He gave a joyful wave, which was met with a muffled roar of cheering.

I looked at all three of their faces, one at a time, a bit miffed. "So like…where are we right now?"

"TOUR!" George yelled, throwing his arms up and looking excited.

The other two shot looks at him, and his arms fell down to his sides and his face took on a rather dejected looking expression. He was just too cute for me to handle, sometimes.

John moved to stand next to me, the blunt fully smoked and his voice smelling like the thick herby scent. "Ya see, we're famous now." He laid down next to George on the bed, stretching out his torso and putting his hands behind his head. "Nothing but the good life for us. The best lookin' birds, the best tastin' booze, and all the weed we could possibly want."

The other two nodded in unison, George grinning in delight. "Donuts for all!"

I rested my hands on my hips, glaring at John and completely ignoring George. "Don't you have like… a wife and kid?"

John nodded curtly. "Yes ma'am."

"Like that would stop him," Paul muttered under his breath. I caught his eye, and we exchanged a glance. I was suddenly reminded of Paul writing "Hey Jude" for Julian, John's son, and pictures of Paul running around with his swarms of children when he was older. According to Julian, growing up, Paul was more of a father to him than John was.

No fucking surprise.

The bathroom door suddenly opened, and Ringo stood there dripping wet, only a towel covering his lower half.

I felt that familiar jolt in my heart when I saw him, but I had to remind myself of two thing: one, that I was getting married, and two, that this wasn't the same Ringo I had always known. This man was…different. Hardened. He lacked that silly air about him that I had always loved so much.

"Richard!" John exclaimed, bringing his hand to his mouth prudishly. "Have you no shame! There are ladies present!" His eyes dipped over to me, then George.

"Ah, quiet you," Paul shushed him, leaning against the wall and lighting a cigarette. "It's nothing A.J.'s never seen before."

Again, that awkward silence descended upon them, and Ringo moved to his open suitcase without so much as looking at any of them. I looked at George from across the room, wide-eyed, and he returned my same expression. We both knew that this was likely not to end well if Paul and John kept up the antics.

"OKAY!" I clapped my hands together once, calling them all to attention. Except for Ringo, who continued to root around in his bag and ignore the entire world around him. It was kind of disappointing, actually, that Ringo had completely gone down the well, because he was looking pretty good in that towel. "I need to talk to George!"

Paul raised his eyebrows, obviously stung, and John remained planted on his ass, eyes halfway closed and staring at the ceiling with a faint smile on his lips.

Neither of them moved.

"I need," I repeated, looking for Paul to John, then back again, "to talk to George."

George, for his part, looked extremely uncomfortable. There was not a demanding bone in his body, and he would never stand up to Paul and John for such a small, silly thing as a conversation with me. When it came to having his songs on the albums, however, he would quit the band and prance around demanding their apologies. But when it came to normal things…nope, fuck it all. I'm George and I'm just gonna not say anything at all.

Well, thank you George. Thank you SO much.

"Talk then," John said, his voice lazy and slurred.

I pulled my chin up, looking down my nose at him in a way that usually pissed him off. "It's private."

Paul suddenly grinned, snapping his fingers and giggling. "Ah, we knew it all along, Johnny Boy! Georgie and A.J. were getting down all along!"

He might have said more, but I couldn't be sure, for as soon as the words "getting down" came out of Paul McCartney's mouth, my hands clapped over my ears and my eyes were squeezed shut. And it was probably a good thing that I had avoided being witness to Paul's scandalous words, as when George finally nudged me and showed me the room key that was obviously John and Paul's, he was dark red and looked as though he would rather have died than been in the room for two more seconds.

Ringo, also, had fled.

George led me into the room across the hall, and we had to weave our way through the other boys' bags and fan mail and illegal paraphernalia. I spotted posters of themselves, portraits of all four of the Beatles, posing together, and crumpled up papers with song titles that were both familiar and not.

"So, John and Paul are being kinda awful to Ringo, aren't they?" I said as we stepped over a mound of trousers, all in varying shades of grey.

George shrugged, finally making it over to the beds. One was made but ruffled slightly, and the other was bare of any covers at all, the mattress half on, and the wooden headboard cracked down the middle.

He saw me eyeing it, and shrugged. "Paul had some friends over last night." He sat down on the made bed – John's bed – and leaned back against the headboard. I perched on the end, watching him carefully. "And as for Ringo, they've been that bad for a while. It's nothing new."

"Oh, so they're not just showing off for me?"

He chuckled. "Nah."

I considered the situation. The way Ringo had smoked just for something to do, the way he ignored everyone else in the room. That wasn't the Ringo everyone told stories about on all those cheesy Beatles documentaries. I had changed him, and maybe changed the course of history. I knew that Ihad to fix it.

"But still," I continued uneasily. "They were being awful."

George shrugged, folding his hands on his stomach and squaring his shoulders. "They were sympathetic at first, of course. Even John. But after a year and a half of just pure moping, it gets a little old."

A year and a half! That was how long Ringo had been miserable, and the second he saw me…it just got worse. "He wasn't even happy to see me," I said, and George looked up instantly. He met my eye, shook his head, a bemused expression adorning his obstinate features.

"He was ecstatic," George disagreed. "He hadn't taken a shower in a week before you showed up!"

I shuddered at that, images and smells that I didn't really care for popping into my mind. "Right, sooo…" I fished around in my head for a topic change, remembering the initial reason of getting away from the rest of the boys. "You were going to tell me about Maggie Mae?"

His eyebrows raised, a sweet smile tugging at one corner of his lips. "Right! Yeah…I suppose we did get a little distracted, didn't we?"

Like hell.

"For good reason, too. But yeah, I want you to tell me about her. John started to, but I feel like his version of things might be a little…" I searched for the right word. It wasn't that I didn't trust John's account of what happened, but…okay, no, it WAS that I didn't John's account of what happened. He was a pathological liar. Could you blame me? "…skewed."

George laughed, entirely catching my drift. "Where shall I start?"

I curled my legs into my chest, resting my chin on my knees. Where should he start? "I suppose the first time you met Maggie Mae, when John brought her around for you guys."

He smiled distantly, as if reliving something grand in his past. "Ah. Well. You see, when I met Maggie and when John introduced me were two entirely different times."

"Well, go on then!"

George grinned widely, sat up, and then began his tale. "Well, like most good stories, ours began in a bar…"

**GEOORRRRRGGGGGEEEEEEE! Yes, I've decided our Georgie Boy will be telling a bit of the story for right now. Because even though there is some stuff going on with AJ and the boys, what I ultimately want to get across for right now is that the main point of this story is to talk about Maggie Mae. And, yes, her story is not quite as interesting as the one I set up so long ago for AJ and Ringo, but BELIEVE me, it gets better. Any drama concerning John is drama worth reading, my friends, trust me.**

**And now, I must go, for I am hungry and there is some queso dip in my fridge just calling my name. GOODBYE. I LOVE YOU. REVIEW PLEASE. :^)**


	6. Things That Went Before

**PLEASE DON'T BE MAD! I know, I KNOW, that three months is an unacceptable amount of time to wait for a new chapter that probably only takes me like two hours to write, tops, but – you know what? No excuses. The reason that I didn't write this chapter a few months ago (-_-) is because 1) I am lazy; 2) I kind of completely forgot because 3) In Spite ended and then I wasn't really on Fanfiction much anymore which in turn led to 4) Addie and I deciding that we didn't want to end our collaborations. What I'm trying to say is that we're writing a book. So. That takes some time. Like I said, though. No excuses.**

**Alright, I think that I've thoroughly bored you all, soooo here is chapter six! (This takes place in Maggie Mae's point of view, as told by the one and only George Harrison.) (Except, you know, not **_**the **_**one and only George Harrison. Because 1) he's dead and 2) that would be pretty weird.)**

It was a long time before I met John Lennon again.

Sure, there was always talk of him. The girls talked about nothing else, really. Him, and his pretty friend Paulie, too. I could hardly walk into town without some acquaintance or another grabbing my arm and whispering something about one of them. Which, I have to say, got to be a little annoying rather than amusing, seeing as I had actually met both of them. In my opinion, neither were worth that much fuss.

Along with the talk came the music. He and his band played almost every night, almost straight through. I did my best to avoid the lot of them, but occasionally I found Val towing me into a pub behind her and forcing me to listen to their putrid harmonies and dastardly monologues.

There were people that thought the same as me, of course. Mostly older men who couldn't stand their Teddy Boy looks and peppy guitar beats. But then, occasionally, I would come across a woman or two that would have liked nothing more than to tell John Lennon right where he could stick his harmonica.

What I gathered, basically, was this: he had a reputation. I thanked God every night that I didn't let him take me home that first drunken evening; Lord only knows what kind of diseases I might have gotten.

Despite my refusal to listen to John's band, I did continue to enjoy the rest of the nightlife in Hamburg. One particular night, I decided I would go listen to a band, like I used to do all the time when we first moved here. Val had to work – she waitressed down at a higher end restaurant in the nicest part of the city – and so I walked down alone. The evening was warm, with the lightest breeze whispering off the water. My hair lifted ever so slightly off my shoulders as I turned the corner and –

Without warning, I was slammed down to the ground, and someone trod heavily on the little finger of my left hand. I gasped in pain, picking up my head and trying to figure out what the hell was going on.

It was then that a large, spindly pale hand was thrust down at me, quickly followed by another. The hands fumbled at my skirt (I guess it had blown up when I was knocked down, whoops) and then they were removed. I peered up at a young, slightly gaunt face.

"I. Am. _So_. Sorry," it said. "Are you okay?"

I blinked a few times, sitting up and pulling my hand toward my chest. It throbbed slightly, and I could see a bruise already forming near my fingernail. "Er, yeah. Yeah, I think I'm alright."

The guy anxious thrust his hand down again, and it took me a moment to realize that he was offering to help me up. Although his voice and his face appeared to be quite boyish, his hands were calloused and rough. Musician's hands. "I – I'm really sorry," he repeated, dropping his arms to the side and looking nervous. "I was just in a hurry and I, uh, didn't see ya there."

Despite the fact that I nearly came up to the guy's chin, I put my hands on my hips and glared at the obvious height dig. "Obviously," I said coolly.

He laughed apprehensively, reaching up to straighten his thick black hair over his equally thick black grow. His open-mouthed laugh revealed a set of white, slightly snaggletoothed chompers. When he saw that I wasn't laughing back, he took in a deep breath and rubbed his palms against his skinny thighs. "Look, I'm really sorry. Let me, I don't know, buy you a drink or something."

I looked him up and down tentatively. He didn't look like a bad guy, necessarily, but then again you could never be sure. But honestly, I didn't have anything better to do. I nodded slowly. "Sure. Yeah, that would be nice...?"

"George," he finished, looking intensely relieved. He blushed a little bit, realizing his own eagerness. To his toes, he said, "And I'm really sorry."

I laughed, shaking my head. "Just stop apologizing, and it's fine." I waited for him to look at me before I continued. "I'm Maggie Mae."

George reached out his over-sized hand for the third time tonight, shaking the tips of my fingers and making me giggle. "Nice to meet you, Maggie Mae." He started walking in what I suppose was the direction of the bar he usually went to, and I went along next to him. "That's an interesting accent you got there. You must be a long way from home."

I nodded knowingly. "I could say the same to you."

"Liverpool," he told me.

"Ireland."

"No kidding?" He turned sharply at a pub that I had been to a few times, but didn't really frequent. He held open the door for me. "And, er, what drew you to this shit hole, if you don't mind my asking?"

I turned to look up at him, his face framed in the doorway and lit up nicely by the streetlight outside. "Ah, well, I heard that there was this cute little lad named George stayin' here, and I just can't resist me a boy with eyebrows like _that_."

I could almost hear him blushing as I made my way to the bar. I smiled to myself, enjoying every bit of his innocence; that in itself was a rare thing to find in this city. And I meant it when I said he was cute.

I sat down on a barstool, looking out at the stage. Whatever band was due to perform hadn't even begun to set up yet, but for once that didn't annoy me. I looked over at George, who had caught up with me and was leaning over the bar to order two beers.

"I, um, hope that's okay," he said when he turned and caught me looking at him.

"I'm an Irish girl, born and raised. You bet your ass that's okay."

He smiled softly and put his elbow on the bar top, raising his leather jacket a few inches off his skinny waist and revealing a patch of porcelain white skin. For whatever reason, that just melted my heart.

"So, how old are ye?" I asked him, taking a sip of my beer once it was delivered. He had the body of a fifteen year old boy, but eyes that looked like they had lived a thousand years. It was a strange thing, the depth of this George's eyes. They were a deep, deep brown; you could stare at them forever and never find your way out. "You don't look nothing more than a baby."

For a moment, he looked like he was considering lying. But then he just shrugged, tipping his beer mug to his lips. "Eighteen."

I raised my eyebrows in surprise. "Wow."

George cocked his head, studying me. "And how old are you? Can't be much older than me."

"Looks can be deceiving," I intoned, smiling at him coyly. But if he had been honest with me, the least I could do was be honest with him. "Twenty."

It's funny how when you're young, the gap between twenty and eighteen actually seems pretty sizable. But then again, there's a whole lot of living that takes place in those two years; no matter who you are, you typically come into your own during those years. However, it seemed to me that George had already come into his own; he seemed really mature, but not in a serious kind of way. It just seemed that he was more laid back than most eighteen year olds that I had come into contact with in my lifetime.

"It's funny," he said, "but you don't look a day over twelve."

Another height joke. "You're hilarious, George." His name felt slippery on my tongue, as though it wanted to get out before I was ready to say it.

"Why thank you, Maggie Mae."

I licked my lips absentmindedly, taking a sip of my beer and leaning back to appraise him fully. He really was pretty cute, but not in the way I had originally thought. He didn't seem all that boyish, really. I guess what was most attractive about him was that he didn't come off as a total scumbag.

I had just opened my mouth to retort when a loud peel of feedback ripped through the bar, cutting me off. Someone was standing at the microphone, darkened to invisibility by the lack of lighting on the stage, and was tapping heavily on it.

"Would a Mr. George Harrison please report to the stage," someone with a light Scouse accent drawled into the mic, imitating some sort of posh London voice. "Mr. George Harrison, you actually have a job tonight, remember. There will be plenty of time for birds later, thank you."

I felt George blush again beside me, but I was too intently focused in on the voice to pay him any mind at the moment. That voice! It was so familiar…

"Well, that's me," George sighed, downing the rest of his beer in one gulp. He turned to go, and in that split second I snapped out of my reverie and made a decision.

I caught his arm just before he spun around. "George – wait."

He turned to look at me, and I slowly slid off my barstool. "Thanks for the drink," I said slowly. "I would love to see you again." I flashed him a quick smile. Normally I wasn't nearly so sure of myself, but something about his easy going manner and his innocent grin made me trust him. More than trust him, really; like him. "Maybe later?"

I could tell that he was trying really, really hard not to raise his eyebrows or smile so big as he said, "I would like that. A lot."

There was another loud tap on the microphone. The voice came back on, this time far less chipper. "GEORRRRRRGGGGEEEE. GET YOUR SRAWNY ARSE UP HERE, YA BLOODY –"

I didn't hear a word more as I reached up on my tiptoes, pecked him lightly the on the cheek, and gave him an encouraging push forward. He stumbled slightly, looking infuriatingly adorable as he bumbled through the crowd like a lost puppy on his way home.

I was still smiling to myself – back on my barstool with my beer in hand, of course – when the stage lights suddenly burst to life, and the voice was revealed to me. It was funny, but the first thought I had was this:

He isn't usually their singer, is he?

And the next, naturally: Oh, shit.

Paul the John Impersonator stared out at us all, grinning with his wide smile and apple cheekbones. "Well, hello to you all." A few people mumbled a response, but that did not even slightly deter the smile that was plastered on his face. "See, usually my mate Johnny does this, but –"

"WOOOHOOOO, LENNON!" someone screamed.

"YEAH, WHERE IS THE BASTARD?" someone else bellowed.

There began a steady chant for John, and I felt a horrible pang in my chest for Paul. It didn't look like he minded much – by the look on his face, this was their plan all along – but I remembered the day we met in the pub by the piano, where he had pretended to be John. Could there have been some truth in that?

I was broken out of my thoughts by a sudden thunder of applause; the arrival of Lennon, most likely. I looked up slowly, not even able to believe what a predicament I had gotten myself into. Yes, just like had suspected, there was John. He was roaring something into the mic, and people were shouting back at him. Standing silently behind him was – of fucking course – George.

George caught me looking at him, and we made eye contact. He offered me up a shy smile before he averted his gaze back down to his guitar.

Oh, God. What had I done? There was no way – no way in hell – I could see John's bandmate! That loathsome son of a bitch would make things horrible for the both of us, and I just knew it. Furthermore, it would be weird as hell. And what would John do to George? John was the leader of the band, after all.

But, no. I couldn't be so self-absorbed. John probably didn't remember me at all. Most likely he forgot my name and face as soon as I exited the pub the day that we got into that row. Maybe George was safe. Maybe, if I just kept my distance….

"This one," I caught John saying, "is dedicated to a bird sitting out there right now, in the hopes that she might once again change her mind, or perhaps forgive a bloke for his quick tongue." I looked up, a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach. I was certain that my face showed every bit of nausea I felt, and sure enough John let out a wild cackle before starting the band up into a wild song that had all of them dancing around the stage.

I couldn't stay there a second longer.

Not with John Lennon's arrogant, insufferable voice and his cruel, beady eyes. Not with George's thick hair already matted to the back of his neck with sweat and a tiny smile popping in the corner of his mouth as he launched into a guitar solo that I sincerely hoped was not also dedicated to me. Not even with Paul, plucking at his bass and wearing the most dull expression that I think had ever slipped onto his perfect features.

I knew what I told George, about wanting to see him later. And I knew that I should wait til his gig was done. But I couldn't stay there a second longer.

Wordlessly, I slapped some money down on the counter to pay for the second beer I had bought, slid off of my stool, and snaked out of the bar. Once I had escaped the smoky and sticky atmosphere of the place, I sucked in a deep breath and stood in the middle of the sidewalk.

I could go back in, follow my instincts, forget what John thought.

Or, I could steal a nice treat from a street vendor and go home.

Eventually, the latter won out. As I munched on my stolen pretzel and clacked down the concrete, I thought about my predicament. I ultimately came to the conclusion that I would just have to stay away from all of them, even if that meant hurting George's feelings. How hard could it be, right? This was a huge city, and they were just a few boys from Liverpool.

I had not considered, of course, that I was dealing with John Lennon. And when John Lennon decides he wants something, he sure as hell gets it.

**YAY! I ACTUALLY WROTE! I hope that I still have readers, after all this time. Because honestly guys, I'm ridiculous. I need to have some sort of schedule that I always stick to so you guys can know when I'm gonna update, but of course I'll probably fall right off that bandwagon. Ugh. My frickin hobbies stress me out. But yeah, that was chapter six. I hope you guys enjoyed, despite that it was lacking in A.J. and Ringo. But it had George! Lots of George, actually. Lots of CUTE George, so that's even better. Right? …right? **

**So, anyways. I'll try to have chapter seven out to you all ASAP. I'd love to hear what you guys thought of THIS chapter in a…oh…I don't know…REVIEW?**


	7. Never Lose Affection

**So I was originally going to write this chapter the second that I updated last month, but then I thought something along the lines of 'But what if I don't even have readers anymore?' and then I was just upset and in no mood to write and I put my laptop away and that was the end of it. And then came The Month of Suck, also known as April. Literally, it's been hell. I get out of school in almost exactly a month, and it can't fucking come soon enough (I'm also trying to declare May the Month Where I Don't Swear Hardly As Much, but we'll see about that). Kay so now I'm here, and now I'm writing. Which is good, of course, but also not good because despite what I told you guys last time, I haven't been working too hard on Addie and my book. I have issues with finishing things, it seems, which is why I love Fanfiction so much; I actually have motivation to get shit done. **

**Alright so anyways. Here's chapter seven, told in the perspective of A.J. because I feel like it, OKAY?**

Here's the awesome thing about getting drunk: you do and say things that you would never, in your entire sober lifetime, do and say.

Example: Saying, "George Harrison, I want to have your gawky, pube-headed babies," and not giving a flying fuck.

A Further Example: Standing up on a bar in 1960s London and proclaiming to hundreds of Beatles fans (and George Harrison), "GEORGE HARRISON I WANT TO HAVE YOUR GAWKY PUBE-HEADED BABIES," and not giving a flying fuck.

An Even Further Example: Standing up on a bar in 1960s London and proclaiming to hundreds of Beatles fans (and George Harrison), "GEORGE FUCKING HARRISON I FUCKING WANT TO HAVE YOUR FUCKING GAWKY PUBE-HEADED BABIES PLEASE," while the man you once declared love to watches as you promptly tumble off the bar and face plant into the lap of a stranger, and not give a flying fuck.

I will not clarify which example – if, ahem, any – was derived from real-life events, but the hangover I woke up with the next morning and the smug look on John Lennon's face when he handed me a steaming mug of black coffee might give it away.

I sat up in bed – I was not really aware of whose bed it was as I was suffering from a mild case of tunnel vision and also I didn't really give a shit at that point in time – and immediately laid back down again. Some liquid sloshed out of the cup and stung my hand, but that pain was nothing compared to the pounding in my head. It would be like comparing a stubbed toe to getting your arm slowly hacked off by a dull axe wielded by a toddler. In other words, no comparison.

"Oh, God," I moaned, pressing one hand over my eyes to block out the fresh sunlight that streamed through the wide open window. "What time is it? No, sorry – uh, what day is it? What year?" John opened his mouth to respond, but I waved it away quickly. "Fuck it, I don't want to think about that."

John let out of a short, humorless laugh. "If nothing else, I must say this; your tolerance for alcohol has surely not increased. Neither has your singing voice."

That brought up a flood of questions to my brain, which revolted by splitting in half and slamming its various parts passionately into either of my temples. I swallowed back a mouthful of bile, and then released a deep breath. My mouth tasted as though something had been rotting in there for several months, and my tongue felt like the skin of peach.

John made a face, quickly taking a step back from me and gulping fresh air. "Oh, Mary Mother of God, that is foul."

I wanted nothing more than to roll over and go back to sleep for several lifetimes, but I knew that I couldn't. 1) John would never allow that, and 2) there were things I needed to do today, people I needed to talk to. I could hide in the sixties forever.

"What happened last night?" I mumbled, tipping my head away from the insistent light and squeezing my eyes shut. "All I remember is George telling me this story…"

"The story about Maggie Mae?" John inquired, looking at me out of the corner of his eye.

"Yeah, when he first met her. To be honest, I don't remember much."

John shrugged nonchalantly, but his tone dropped its playful edge. "You guys had a few drinks here, and then we all decided to make a public appearance at some tavern down the way, so you came along. It probably wasn't a good decision, looking back. Ah, well, hindsight is 20/20."

"So George was telling me the story when – "

"You got smashed and started making proclamations about the love of your life. Some chap by the name of Horgie Wa-Georgie Harrington." John settled into an armchair opposite the window, leaning back and taking a deep gulp of coffee. "Ringo was just as delighted to hear about him as me."

I groaned, rolling onto my stomach and pressing a pillow over my head. Of course. Of fucking course. Why would I be able to go back into the Beatles' time and actually behave myself? Shouldn't I know better right now? There was no way that little act of mine was going to escape unnoticed, and the very last thing I needed was to end up in some newspaper for everyone to see for generations and generations.

Just then, the door burst open, lighting the only remaining dark of the room. "Ah, so the infamous Mrs. Wa-Georgie Harrington awakens!" Paul's chipper voice assaulted my ears through the protection of the pillow, making me moan even more fervently. The ache in my head was dizzying, and I felt my stomach churn. However, my limbs felt heavy and unsteady, and I knew that if I had to make a break for the bathroom I would probably collapse at the side of my bed.

Another voice followed Paul's. "Aye, lads, leave 'er alone. We've all had a few too many drinks in the past." George.

"You _dare_ accuse Mrs. Harrington of intoxication?" There was a scuffing sound as John whipped himself out of his chair. "Don't you know who the love of her life _is_?"

"Sir Horgie Wa-Georgie Harrington is a creature of the gods themselves," Paul hissed, "and he would have your head mounted in his drawing room if he ever heard such blasphemy."

"Mrs. WFH is a lady of the utmost nature."

"A doe in a field of weasels."

"The sunset on a planet with only moons."

"The crest of a wave on a windless day."

"She makes princes fall to their knees in awe." There was a brief stuttering as John searched for words. "Grown men weep in the face of her…face."

Paul sighed deeply. "Ah, George. Look at her. Look at that lump of pure and utter perfection. Have you ever seen a Sleeping Beauty of the likes of that one? Have your plain eyes ever befallen such an angel of all things good?"

"Lady Wa-Georgie Harrington need not be defended, George," John said wisely, "because she never does anything that needs defending."

And with that, Mrs. Horgie Wa-George Harrington herself picked her head up, leaned over the side of the bed, and heaved the entire contents of her stomach on the shoes of three of the greatest musicians of all time.

…

I sat hunched over on the cold tile floor of Paul and John's bathroom, bile burning my throat and involuntary tears stinging at my eyes. I felt terrible; I hadn't had a hangover this bad since my junior year of high school, back when I had to get drunk off of cheap beer and vodka. I was surrounded by a small arsenal of gifts the boys had brought me in between breaks of their press conference: a bottle of Aspirin, a box of tissues, eye drops, mouth wash (in case I got a visitor and didn't want them to have to join me at the toilet just at the smell of my breath), Saltines, an entire pitcher of water, and, most recently, a small notebook of songs that George had written. I suppose the last thing was for entertainment, because I was not the right person to judge the songwriting quality of one of the Beatles.

I rested my head against the cool, white porcelain, trying to remember how I even got to this place in the first place. Not the bathroom, but the time period. Last time it had been on purpose – a mission subsequently given to me by my grandfather. But this time…God, who knew? I had just closed my eyes, and here I was. It made me slightly nervous; what if I went back before I was ready? I mean, I couldn't exactly just keep my eyes open for the next day and a half, could I?

My stomach heaved a little bit, but there was nothing for me to throw up at that point. My stomach had been emptied out more times than I could count already that day, and I wasn't stupid enough to try and eat again. The box of Saltines sat untouched.

I had the sneaking suspicion that the reason I was feeling this bad only half had to do with the alcohol. The other half, I had to admit to myself, was guilt. Guilt for being here, so far away from my real world. Guilt for making everyone else struggle under the weight of the present while I pranced around freely in the past. Guilt for running away.

But I didn't run, not really. It wasn't my choice to end up here.

All these thoughts made the headache that was now just a dull pounding increase, so I closed my eyes and focused on taking deep breaths and tried not to think anything. Soon enough I felt myself start to slip from reality. The bathroom faded slightly, my breathing got heavy, and –

Someone knocked at the door.

"A.J.? Can I come in?"

_No_, I felt like saying. _You cannot, under any circumstances, see me like this._

"Sure," I ended up croaking, because it was easier.

The door glided open smoothly and Ringo nervously entered. He looked small standing in the doorway; like a little boy looking in on something he wasn't sure he wanted to see. He took a small step forward, hesitated, and then sat down on the ledge of the tub. My head remained on the toilet seat.

He sucked in a deep breath, and suddenly the words were pouring out of him. "Look. I'm sorry for the way I've been treating you and I'm sorry that I've sorta let myself go but it's not my fault! You told me you loved me and I said it back, and then you left me knowing that. You _knew_. That's what kills me. I think about it so much; how if the circumstances were different, if you had been born a few decades earlier, maybe, or if you weren't so brave… But, no. You did the right thing. You did the right thing, and it kills me. And the fact that I hate you for being a good person kills me, too. I just can't seem to shake off the feeling that you were the right one for me; that we let something good slip away. Fuck it, I'm just angry – no, pissed – at you. You didn't have to leave! You didn't have to do the right thing! No one should have mattered besides me and you, and yet they did and that's unfair and the whole thing is just…"

He put his hands to his head, his fingers locking into his thick dark hair. He glared down at his knees as though they had personally offended him. "It's confusing, is all." There was a long pause, where I was afraid of saying anything for fear of interrupting, but his mouth hung open, silent. "And I want things to be simpler."

My headache had returned with a vengeance. I pushed myself away from the cool porcelain, though, and sat up straight. I felt dizzy and unstable, like I had this morning. I wish I had said what I felt like saying, and not let him in the room.

I took a long time to look at him. I remembered how at one time, just the sight of him sent me into a state of infatuation so deep I could hardly breathe. Now, though, I didn't see the Ringo I'd once known. I saw someone older, someone harder. A changed man, as I had thought when I first arrived. And, in fact, that first assumption was true; the previous Ringo wouldn't dwell on things as this one obviously did. He lived life easily, freely. And then a startlingly thought occurred to me:

Did I not love him anymore?

My mother always told me that you never forget your first love. Or any love, really. Once you love someone, it's forever. Did that mean that what I had felt for Ringo was fabricated? A fabulous idea that had occurred to my seventeen year old mind and could not shake?

I stared at him long and hard, considering my words. Finally, I chose the most honest ones I could. "I don't think I know you anymore, Ringo Starr," I whispered, my throat thick with disuse and tire.

He glanced up then, and looked me straight in the eyes for the first time since I had come back here. I remembered how those large blue orbs used to send a chill down my spine, make me weak in the knees. Now they left just a dull sort of ache in my heart; an ache for someone I would probably never meet again. "I don't understand."

I licked my burning red, chapped lips. "I'm sorry I broke your heart, Ringo. I'm so, so sorry for that." I sighed, clasping my hands in front of me tightly. "But you broke mine, too. And now we're two very different people."

He shook his head, getting ready to object. "No," I cut him off. "No, it's true. You're…broody. Unhappy. You're not filled with that same sort of…life. And me? I'm more mature now."

He laughed at that. A dry chuckle that was unknown to me and didn't ring the slightest bit like it used to. "Ah, yes. Mature people are often known to dance on bar tops and sing love ballads to men they claim only platonic feelings towards." He shot me a dubious look. "Don't bullshit me."

I didn't want to hear one more word about my wild, unremembered night. It was going to make me sick again. "Alright, so maybe I didn't behave very maturely last night. But I am, actually, much more grown up. I'm getting _married_, I just graduated from _college_. I…I…" My thoughts raced; how I could I prove to him that I was different now? That I didn't just throw caution to the wind and do whatever I wanted? Briefly, I considered telling him the reason I came here; or, really, the reason that I _couldn't_ be here.

"Does George know you're getting married?"

The words were quiet, almost inaudible. I was positive that I wasn't supposed to hear them. Yet I looked up anyway, my brow furrowed deeply. "Of course. Why?"

Ringo shrugged. "Didn't seem that way last night."

I felt like hauling off and slugging him. "_Really_? That's why you came in here to talk to me? To ask if there was anything going on between _me and George_?" The entire situation made me so mad I could scream, but instead I just pounded my fist down into the hard tile floor.

His features returned to the way they were when I first saw him; guarded, cold, distrusting. "Well you don't have to get mad about it."

"DON'T I?" I bellowed, my throat feeling as though it had been torn from my body. I swallowed, but it continued to burn ferociously. "There is nothing – and never has – been anything there. You should know that more than anybody, you jealous asshole. Do you even really care about me? Or us? Or…or…" I shook my head wildly, my thoughts unformed and fragmented.

"If you feel nothing more for him than kinship," Ringo said, his tone icy, "then tell me why you've spent all of your time here with him so far."

_I don't have to tell you shit_, I wanted to scream.

But the thing is, I did want to tell him shit. I wanted to tell him _everything_. I wanted him to understand my predicament, and why I didn't need to be having this pointless argument with him right now. "He's telling me a story." My voice sounded defeated, and I hated it.

"What story?"

I couldn't tell him. He knew next to nothing about Maggie Mae, and John liked it that way. The less people that knew about his heartbreak, the better. Which was stupid, really, because he wrote about lost love many times in his songs throughout his career, and he never batted an eyelash at people realizing that there was some truth in those songs. But whatever.

Just as I opened my mouth to tell some stupid lie that he would never in a thousand years believe, the door was pushed open once again. George himself stood there, looking larger than Ringo had twenty minutes previously. I had never been so relieved and simultaneously frustrated by his appearance in the time that I had known him.

"George," I rasped, and Ringo followed my gaze to where he stood.

"George," Ringo said curtly, then stood up.

George put his hands out, taking a tentative step backwards. He fixed his eyes on mine. "I'm sorry if I'm…interrupting something. I just thought you would like to hear more of the story." His gaze travelled around to the various items that haloed my spot on the floor. "Or we could do that later, when you feel better or something."

Ringo shook his head, striding forward. "Don't be silly, Georgie. I was just leaving."

My breath caught in my throat as I caught sight of his face in the reflection of the medicine cabinet; he looked worn, miserable. Like a weary soldier heading out for yet another battle. I thought of all the years he had yet to live, and I thought of his impending alcoholism. Somehow, I had to fix this. I would not let myself destroy a person and then just walk away, as he had accused me of doing earlier. I was better than that, and I knew deep in my heart he was worth it. But right now, there were more pressing matters.

"Ringo," I said quickly. He titled his head towards me just so, and I could just make out the outline of his face in the light from the hallway. "Wait."

And then I made the horrible mistake of hesitating, of trying again to choose my words carefully. It was so unlike me, I realize. Typically I said the first thing that came into my mind, whether it was far too blunt or hardly true at all. Maybe that's how I had changed; maybe I wasn't mature at all, just a little more wary than I used to be. I couldn't decide if that was a good or bad thing.

Ringo let out a deep, body-folding sigh when I remained silent. "But how much longer would you have me wait, A.J.?" he asked quietly, his eyes averting to his toes. And then he was gone, slipping out the door without so much as a sound.

George stared at me, but I couldn't look at him. My head pounded with these fresh new dramas, and I just wished it would stop. I would never drink again, I vowed to myself.

"This is awkward," George finally said. When I looked up at him, there was the slightest bit of a smile playing on his lips.

With the greatest amount of effort I could muster up, I smiled back and him and hauled myself to my feet. It had been hours since I had stood up, and the blood rushed to my head suddenly. I would have fallen over if George had not reached out and grabbed my arm, steadying me.

I pointed at the shower behind me. "I'm gonna have one of those," I told him. "And then you are going to tell me how it is that John Lennon won Maggie Mae's heart, and not you."

He nodded, and turned on his heel to exit the room. When the door was safely shut behind him, I pulled off my lank clothes and stepped under the hot water. There, all other thoughts evaporated, leaving me with only one thing:

My heart no longer skipped a beat when Ringo said my name.

**Kay guys, so it's safe to say that the next chapter is gonna be in Maggie Mae's POV. Buuuuuut you should still tell me what you thought of this chapter – more importantly, you should give me suggestions about what you think should happen with Ringo and A.J. Should she leave her fiancée forever to be with our Ringo, or should she leave the past and go home, where she will be married and – WAIT. DID I FORGET TO TELL YOU SOMETHING? IS THERE AN ACTUAL REASON THAT A.J. HAS BEEN SENT BACK TO THE PAST TO HEAR THE STORY OF MAGGIE MAE?**

**If you guess what said reason is, I will give you…something. Hahahaha trust me, it'll be an awesome something. Guess away, my readers, and once again: THANK YOU FOR READING! :^) George appreciates it.**

**(Btw, this has been the longest chapter in the story, so far. And it's only a little bit over 3500 words. Pathetic, isn't it?)**


	8. I Remember

**Wow okay so hi. I told myself, "Catie, listen to me. You are GOING TO FINISH THIS FANFIC THIS SUMMER GOD DAMMIT." I swear to God, that was my intention. Whether it will be done or not, I'm not sure. But what I will guarantee you is that you guys will be getting at LEAST three chapters. (Like…one for every month? Yeah.) I really hate leaving you guys hanging for so long, but there are just so. Many. Other. Things. Like, things I've never told you about. Like Camp NaNoWriMo? Yeah. Doing that. (But only in June, so at least I have all of August to write for you people.) Um, my novel that I'm writing with Addie (SparksDiamond) (God I'm using a lot of parenthesis). That novel is a bunch of different short stories (not a bunch, six, I don't know why I wrote a bunch hahaha) but it's very fun and a very different experience. Hm. What else, what else. I have to work? And play volleyball? And workout (ew)? And sometimes I have to see my friends and not just hermit inside all day? And then I have to start swimming again?**

**I'm busy, okay? Did I get that point across? Sweet George on Acid. :^) I'm sorry it's like 12:30 in the morning and I'm like ASDLFJAWOEJFALS right now but I WANTED TO UPDATE SO GOD DAMN IT I WILL. Look how much I've written already. Wow. I should just write fanfics of me just talking. (Oh, wait, already tried that. Shit.) **

**This is becoming quite extensive. Okay okay okay just ONE LAST THING. I know that a bunch of you have probably quit reading this by now, but I just wanted to say how much it SUCKS that some of my best readers who leave the most kickass reviews are anonymous (I just had such a difficult time trying to spell that but spell check stepped in, thankfully). So, here's my official thank you so much to all of you, because you continue to make my day and keep my writing fuel going each time you comment; it never goes unnoticed. :^) Happy reading guys. (This is in Maggie Mae's POV, like I said last it would be last time.)**

If nothing else, John Lennon was persistent. You had to give him that.

He wanted what he wanted, and for whatever reason, what he wanted was me. I was quite positive that once he _got_ me, he would go back to his normal tough-talking, thoughtless self. John was a man of the chase, and nothing but. I, on the other hand, wanted a more steady life. A man to bring home a paycheck and babies at my breast and all that old shit that my mother had installed me back in the Old Country. Underneath all my adventures here, I still ultimately wanted that.

As it goes, John's and my desires did not intervene.

For a long time I was scared to go to any tavern or pub that claimed to be home to the infamous Beatles, who were growing more and more popular as the days went by, seemingly. But there were many other bands – some good, some completely awful – in Hamburg, all trying to make it big. It turned out that the city was bigger than I previously expected; it was a lot easier to avoid the one band that I didn't want to see than I thought.

However, there was Val.

Val was so utterly taken by the Beatles (more like with Paul the Cute One and John Wannabe) that she tried to seek them out nearly every night that she had off of work. She didn't like that I didn't want to go with her. Mostly, she was just curious as to why.

"I thought you said you talked to the lead singer? At the bar? That one night?"

She was standing in the small bathroom that we shared in our tiny apartment. A tube of deep red lipstick was cradled in her fingers, and a record was playing in the background. She was dressed as loosely as she got, her hair hairsprayed into stone.

I sighed, leaning back onto my bed and pulling the book I was holding closer to my face. "John?"

"Yeah," she said, smacking her lips together and then ripping off a piece of toilet paper to blot. "Him. He seemed quite taken with you. And you didn't seem too offended by him…" I could practically feel her devilish smile.

"He's _foul_," I hissed, slamming my book into the bed and turning my head to look at her. "We don't get along whatsoever. I was interested in his bandmate – George – for a little while, but that would be too awkward, I think."

Val turned on her heel, putting on hand on her hip and staring at me incrediculously. "George? The skinny one between Paul and John?"

"Mhmm," I said, smiling. "He's nice. And funny."

"And young," Val added, "and inexperienced."

I rolled my eyes. "As compared to John, who has more experience than the rest of them put together?"

She scoffed, as though I was being completely ridiculous. "John is about ten times as sexy, too." She leaned forward, lining her eyes with thick black mascara. "In any case, we won't be seeing them tonight. I promised the bartender at…"

I kind of stopped listening after that, instead leaning back on the creaky old bed and thinking about John and George. They were too such different people. John reeked of confidence and charisma, but George had this quiet poise about him that she could not help but find attractive. As far as looks went…George was probably a few years younger than her, and John looked like he could put his trousers on in the dark, blindfolded with two hands tied behind his back.

Val could probably vouch for that.

I was broken out of my thoughts by the sound of clapping hands. I looked up and saw Val standing there in a dress that hugged and hung from her body in all the right places. "Very nice," I said, as that was my duty as sister.

She nodded at me, and I knew it was my turn for appraisal. Sighing, I stood up and moved into the harsh light of the bathroom. Once there, we both stared at our similar looking faces in the mirror; two pairs of deep blue eyes, two freckled noses, two sets of cherry red, plump lips. From behind me, Val fluffed up my mass of dark hair, which tumbled down my shoulders in thick ringlets. She held up the hairspray can, ready to assault them in her own fashion, but I knocked her hand away with a grimace.

"You are not putting that stuff anywhere near my head."

She tsked her tongue, shaking her head. "No one wears their hair like that," she said, looking at her own hair in the mirror and spraying it a bit. Valerie was born more fair than I was, her hair golden brown instead of chocolate. Her skin was slightly tanner than my own, and she stood at least five inches taller than I did.

"Are you ready?" I asked her, anxious to leave the apartment.

She cast her eyes up and down me, then nodded. I was wearing the same little red dress that I was when I met John. Val moved forward, and I thought she was going to go for her keys so that we could get going. Instead, she reached into our shared closet and pulled out a pair of dangerous black heels.

"For you," she said, holding them out to me.

I blanched. "No thank you."

She cackled her raspy laugh, throwing her head back and shoving the shoes into my arms. The heels had to be at least four inches tall, and sharp and narrow as daggers. There was little else to them. "Put them on. I saved up a fortune for them, and you're lucky that I'm letting you wear them before I am." She gestured to her own feet, which were clad in more modest pumps. "My feet are killing me from work."

There was nothing I could do; she would insist, no matter what, that I wore the things. And I knew that if I fell (which, as I slid my feet into them, seemed entirely likely), the skirt of my dress would hide very little. I was resigned to wear them, and wear them well.

When I finally stood up in the shoes, I was hardly as tall as my sister was flat-footed. Though they were just about as uncomfortable as walking on knives, I felt good in them. Strong, sure of myself. And, I had to admit, sexy.

Val held open the door as I marched out, determined.

…

As big as Hamburg is, there are very few men worth a girl's time. As soon as we sat down at the bar, we were bombarded with drinks and slurred pick-up lines alike.

Val ate it up, as she always did, but I stepped away and wandered towards the dance floor and stage. That was always the place I liked to be most; listening to music and letting myself go. It was what I came to Hamburg for; God knew I hadn't come to meet a husband.

"Maggie Mae?"

My gut wrenched as I heard my name called over the sound of the band playing and people chattering. I turned my head and was very relieved to see George heading towards me, and none of his band in tow.

"Hey," he breathed when he finally same close enough for me to hear him without screaming. "It's good to see you again!"

I instantly felt a little bad; I had left him the night I had me him, ditching the club before his band could finish their set. All because I'd realized that the band he was in was the same one that John was the leader of, and I knew that any sort of relationship we had – real or just physical – would be offensive to John and would not end well.

Plus I never wanted to see him again.

I nodded vigorously in response, lifting a drink that some guy had bought me to my lips. I meant it, too; we had hit it off right away. I wished something could have happened between the two of us. "I'm really sorry about last time."

He looked relieved that I'd been the one to bring it up. "What happened? I thought…"

"You thought right." I took a deep breath, wondering if I should tell him that I knew John and he was the reason that I had taken off prematurely. "It wasn't you."

George frowned, then opened his mouth. But before he could say anything, there was a hand wrapped around his shoulder, then an arm, and then John Lennon sidled up next to him. He had a cigarette poised in between two fingers on one hand, a glass of a dark amber liquid in the other, and a simper spread across his lips.

"Aye, Georgie, we been wonderin' where you disappeared off to." He took a sip of his drink, then looked at me pointedly. As though he needed to be introduced.

George was clearly annoyed, and he shrugged out of John's embrace before saying, "Erm, John, this is Maggie Mae. Maggie Mae, this is – "

"I know who he is," I said, probably a bit more sharply than was necessary. George didn't deserve any malice; no, I should reserve all of that for John and his stupid games.

His friend was confused, but John just continued to wear that smirk like a crown. "Ah, the ever elusive Miss Maggie Mae. No good, rotten Maggie Mae. The one that got away."

I scowled. "I was talking to George."

John raised his eyebrows, feigning surprise. "Oh, that's strange. I wasn't previously aware that you and my good friend George were acquainted. I actually thought you and me had something going on, and therefore I think I have a right to be offended."

I rolled my eyes heavily and made a loud scoffing sound, but George looked slightly hurt. "You didn't tell me you knew John…" he said softly, casting his big, brown eyes my way.

My mouth twitched sympathetically. This was exactly, _exactly_ what I had thought to avoid by not seeing George and ignoring John. I didn't even know John, and I knew that you couldn't win by him. "That's because I don't really know John at all. One time he hit on me, and one time I told him that I never wanted to talk to him again."

John seemed to have very selective hearing. "Ah, but that one time was such a good time, wouldn't you agree? You seemed to think so at the time, at least. As I recall, you were wearing that same dress." His eyes travelled the length of my body, all the way down to my feet, then shot back up. He made a sound of surprise. "Ah! But the shoes are new, aren't they? I thought you looked taller…"

I put two hands square in the center of his chest, and then shoved him away from me. "You. Are. _Repulsive_," I hissed. That only seemed to amuse him.

"You don't think me charming?" he asked, drawing closer once more. "Some find my repulsiveness quite endearing."

"Not me."

He put his hand on his heart. "Oh, Maggie Mae. You wound me."

I set my jaw, realizing for the first time that George had drifted away. I saw him by the bar, raising his hand for a drink as a girl slid her hand around his elbow. He looked down at her, murmured something, and she threw her head back and laughed. I felt a jealous heat in my tummy, and I had to remind myself that George could talk to whoever he liked. After all, hadn't I basically rejected him by talking to John now, and days ago when I had left the club before he could come talk to me again?

My gaze returned to John, and I found that he was still looking at me. "You've cost me my date," I said, gesturing with my chin to where George was.

He turned and looked. "Ah, well. It would seem so." He grinned his impish grin. "What will you do now?"

I bit my lip, because despite it all some part of me wanted to smile. I forced myself to remember that he was just a bitter, drunken man. That he didn't really like me, only what I had between my legs. That no matter what, we wanted very different things and I shouldn't allow myself to fall into his trap.

"Now," I said, "I think I will go find my sister." And then I walked away, making sure to swing my narrow, almost nonexistent hips as I passed him.

I had to squeeze past a wall of men and scantily clad women to find my sister. She was hanging on the man sitting next to her, who was yelling something in English with a thick German accent. His cheeks were flushed pink to match hers, but I couldn't help but notice that his smile was a little brighter.

"Val?"

She didn't appear to hear me; instead she leaned forward and took a sip off of his drink. She glanced around, as though looking for a better offer somewhere else.

"VALERIE?"

She jumped, turning around and smiling to see me. "Hey. I saw you talking to your men over there." She cackled. "Good thing I pointed you out to them, isn't it?"

From across the bar, I watched as Paul strode up next to George and clapped a hand on his back. The boy turned and smiled at his older friend, then gestured to the girl next to him. Paul pointed at the door. George nodded and muttered something. Paul let out a burst of laughter that I could hear all the way over here, and George looked down, clearly embarrassed.

My face flushed with envy, and I forced my eyes onto my sister.

"Not really," I said vaguely. "I think I might get going."

She snorted. "Not dressed like that, you're not."

"Valerie, really, I'm not in the mood for this – "

"No, but it looks like someone else might be."

I barely had time to raise my eyebrows in question when I felt a hand on my shoulder blade and heard the chair next to me squeak as someone was pushed off and someone else clambered on. "Hey, baby," John said in a horrible American accent. "Come here often?"

I screamed in frustration, but the sound was lost in the sea of noise in the club. "Leave me _alone_!"

Honestly, why did I even bother coming out any more?

I made to spin around, but he grabbed my hand. I was surprised by the gentleness of his calloused fingers, and I felt like I almost had to watch as he slid his long, pale fingers through mine. I had to admit; it was pretty sexy.

Finally, my good sense returned to me, and I ripped my hand from his grasp. He looked up, bemused. "Was it something I said?"

"You," I informed him, "are the most frustrating, evil, obsessive…UGH I have ever met!"

"Ugh?"

I breathed out deeply, closing my eyes and shaking my head. "Why can't you just let me be?"

He smiled brightly, leaning forward so that I could smell his oddly intoxicating scent of cigarette smoke, alcohol, and spearmint. His eyes were wide and honest and more warmly brown than I could have ever imagined. "Because I _like_ you."

This exasperated me beyond words. "You don't even know me!"

"No," he allowed, "but I want to."

It struck me then how much John Lennon had a way with words. That was the first time I felt my heart flutter, the first time that I wanted to let him know me. But I had to remember the person that he really was, and I also had to remember the person that I really was. We were not compatible. It was George I liked. George, with his sweet smile and quiet air. George, with that innocence that was so rare to find him boys his age.

But if I wanted innocence, why hadn't I just stayed in Ireland?

I swallowed back that thought. "Well, I think that's a little bit up to me."

He nodded, and there was nothing more to say. I didn't want to talk to him anymore, because I was afraid that the longer I knew him the more I would begin to like him. And I didn't want to like him. I didn't, I didn't. I liked George.

But looking at John then, I knew that wasn't true.

After that, I stopped trying to avoid John and his band. It was easy to let him try and charm me to death, but I couldn't ignore him anymore. Like I said, John was nothing if not persistent, and I wasn't sure if I liked that or dreaded it. I had to admit it, though: You can only hate someone so much before you start to like them for it.

**O.o **

**John, you dog. After writing all of that (plus that huge-ass beginning AN) I really don't have much to say here, except sorry (as ever) for the wait and also for my sudden enamor with parenthesis, I don't know where that came from. I PROMISE YOU these chapters are going to start coming faster. I know I say that all the time, but I mean that. Like, from the bottom of my heart. You guys are awesome because you don't have to be reading this and you are and I'm forever grateful. I love writing these stories, and as long as you'll read them, I'll be writing them.**

**Thanks and more thanks, guys. REVIEW, PLEASE. (Also, have a George for you troubles. :^) )**


	9. Some Forever

**It occurs to me that this is the fastest that I've updated in the past…like…year, and you know what? That makes me sick. When I was writing Any Time At All, the second I put up the chapter I would be up all night writing the next one. It was a sickness for me, and I loved every second of it. I have to take a step back and look at myself, I think, because I don't know what's changed. I'm not funny anymore, everything I do is so serious (but in real life and in my writing). I think that I've started taking things much too seriously, and I wish I would be able to stop.**

**Advice would be wonderful. :^/ Here's chapter nine.**

I swear to God, I didn't intend for it to happen.

One second George was taking someone else home and the next second, John was taking me home. It was like…I blinked, and suddenly I was some useless whore that went around with any ole guy that barked up her tree.

Except my tree was exclusive, or so I tried to tell myself. My tree was for only the best of dogs, God dammit, and there were no mutts allowed (John being a mutt in this metaphor). It wasn't that night that it happened – the night that I finally gave in to John and let him try and work his magic on me. No, rather it was several weeks later, after I had to watch George bed girl after girl and that awkward innocence that had charmed me so much slowly melt away into just awkwardness.

I hated it, but I was stuck.

What was I supposed to do? Throw myself at him? No, that would be even worse than sleeping with John Lennon (who not hurting on that front, even with my refusal to do anything with him). Since the night that I admitted I knew John, he hadn't spoken one word to me. The most I'd gotten was an uncomfortable eye-meeting across the bar one night while I sat alone and some long-legged creature licked at his neck.

For all the build-up that occurred before it, the actual act of me giving in was rather anticlimactic. John came up to me in all his usual vigor, prepared to say whatever the hell popped into his mind at the moment. Tonight, it was:

"And who said twelve year olds couldn't be sexy?"

I gave him a pointed look. "The police."

He pointed his finger at me. "Right, yes." He flicked that finger down, indicating my body. "But that was supposed to be a compliment."

"A compliment to what?" I asked, snorting a bit and leaning back into the bar. "My lack of anything resembling hips or my general lack of body fat in the right places?"

John wiggled his eyebrows in what I'm sure he assumed to be a rather seductive move. "Whatever scores me the date."

"Date?" I couldn't help but ask, the word startling me out of my attitude. I don't know why, but it seemed so alarming to me that John Lennon could ever have anything planned for a woman that didn't include a mattress.

"Well, what did you think?" he demanded. "That I would just fuck you useless and leave?"

"Yes," I admitted without missing a beat.

He shrugged, straightening his jacket and tucking his hands in his pockets. "Well, as a matter of fact, I can be a right gentleman. Isn't that right, Paul?" he asked, pulling his friend and bandmate Paul McCartney out of what appeared to be thin air.

Paul looked drunk and confused. "Er," he said, scratching his forehead with the hand that was holding his drink – something clear and bubbly – and dribbling a bit down the center of his eyebrows. "Whatareya talkin' about?"

"Aren't I a gentleman?"

Paul cast John a bleary-eyed look. "If you're a gentleman, I'm a fucking loaf of bread."

As he stumbled off in the direction he came – he kept glancing around confusedly, like he wasn't really sure where he was and he was trying to play it off casually – we shared a quick chuckle on his behalf. "Ah, the charming Paul McCartney," John sighed, watching as his friend pitched forward and landed face-first into a lady's lap. She didn't seem to mind so much. "Would you believe that he's seen the underside of more women in his lifetime I have?"

"I wouldn't."

"Twice as many. He's done twice as many as me, easily." John shook his head, slightly exasperated. "I don't even know why. It's not like he's got anything special."

"Well, he's cute. That must help." I glanced up quickly into John's beady little eyes, wondering whether he got my joke. The glare I received back alerted me that yes, yes he had gotten it.

"It's the eyebrows," he said dismissively, and that was the end of the conversation.

For a heartbeat, it was quiet between us. I was staring down at his feet, wondering why someone like John Lennon would ever want to waste his valuable time on a person like me. I mean, he was a musician, and a good one at that. There were women at this club that would literally throw themselves on him, and thanks to me there were nights where he didn't go home with anyone at all. Which wouldn't be a big deal, for a normal person. But he wasn't a normal person. He was John Lennon. He ate chords and shit beautiful lyrics; he was the Jesus Christ of music. Was I holding him back?

No, I realized. No, he wasn't the Jesus Christ of anything, no matter how good he was in front of a crowd and how clever he was with a few strings attached to a hunk of wood. He was a person, a person just like me. And just like me, he hated when people threw themselves at him – wasn't that the reason I had turned him down all those nights? Because he was a douchebag?

Again, I was wrong. He didn't hate when girls threw themselves at him, because he could sympathize with them. He liked the chase. He liked not knowing if I would ever be with him or not, and he wanted the satisfaction of waking up and finally seeing me on the other side of his bed. After he saw me there, he would never speak to me again. I knew that without a doubt. I wasn't anything special, just like none of the men that I slept with in the past were anything special to me. But I had pursued them, and now John was pursuing me.

If I gave in, he would leave me alone. I would be done.

But the situation was, of course, more complicated than that. Because he didn't just want to sleep with me, he wanted to take me out on a date. Which made everything a lot more serious and oh my GOD was I overthinking this.

Still, though. I had to wonder what John was thinking. As I stared down at his feet, his stared down at mine. What was he thinking about me? More or less the same thing – that he just wanted this chase to be over with? No. No, that's not what he was thinking. As it happens, however, I wouldn't find out what he was thinking at that very moment for a long, long time.

"So about that date," he said finally, breaking my trance.

I looked up into his eyes, and once I did I found I couldn't look away. His eyes were dark and I couldn't for the life of me read them. But I thought – maybe it was just a trick of the light, a shadow, something – but I thought… I thought I saw something familiar in those eyes.

"Yeah," I answered slowly, still locked in place. "About that date."

John raised his eyebrows, looking smug and triumphant and just the smallest touch of disappointment all at once. "Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Yeah," he repeated, his voice husky with cigarette smoke and tiredness. "Yeah, okay. A date."

And that, pretty much, started it all.

…

George stopped talking, his mouth hanging open midsentence. He looked troubled by something, deep in thought. I kind of cleared my throat, because what the hell? He was supposed to be telling me a story. When he didn't snap out of his trance, I cleared my throat louder and even went so far as to roll around on the bed we were sitting on a little bit. Finally, he seemed to notice me.

"That's it," he said.

Which made me mad, because that wasn't the entire story. That was the beginning, not even the juicy stuff. I wanted to know exactly why John fell for – of all fucking people – my little Irish born grandmother. But if George knew, he wasn't telling.

"No," I said, my voice strained, "that's not it."

George shrugged. "I can't tell you anymore, because that's all I know."

Which, I allowed, was true enough; he had never told me that he was going to tell me the entire story; only how John manage to steal away a girl that was so entirely smitten with him. Which was a total John man-whore thing to do. I wasn't surprised in the least. What I was surprised by, however, was that Maggie Mae had given in so easily.

The weirdest part of the story was that I found myself not really liking my grandmother. I didn't find her strong or endearing or really even anything; I saw a girl like any other, who (also like any other) liked John Lennon.

"Personally," I said slowly, drawing out the words. "I think you both could have done better." I thought about it for a second, and then added, "Well, maybe not John. But you could have."

"I did," he reminded me.

"GEORGE." My temper flared up suddenly, and I spun to look at him on the bed. One corkscrew curl got stuck on my lips, which I had recently slathered with a shitload of Carmex. "Please don't make me have to ask John."

"Sorry."

But I could tell that he wasn't sorry, and I couldn't figure that out. Of all of the Beatles, it seemed to me that I got along with George the most. Maybe we were just very similar people, or maybe it was that he was just an easy person to be with. In any case, John was the exact opposite of that for me. Even though we had long since admitted to have slightly emotional and not-always-hostile feelings toward each other, we still walked on thin ice around each other most of the time.

Also he was man-whoring particularly hard in these days (as though he ever stopped for breath in any of the Beatles era) and I doubted that he wanted to spend an evening talking about some woman that hated and loved so fiercely all at once. Why would he do that when he could waste the night away with a woman that he only had to love for ten minutes? I had to admit, if I were a man, that would seem much more appealing to me.

Thank God I wasn't a man, or I would have probably have been looser than even Paulie.

"I don't wanna," I moaned, throwing myself down onto the bed and covering my face with a pillow.

I felt the bed creak and lift up as he stood up (though, admittedly it didn't lift up all that much more because George probably weighed roughly seventeen pounds). "A.J. Stop. That's really not attractive."

Which was as un-Georgelike a comment as they come and was the reason that I sat up stiffly and watched him walk through the door to the hotel room. When he entered the hallway, there was an immediate scream of delight (probably from some fangirls, but I mean...times were a changing out there) before the door was closed again and the sound cut off. I felt strangely alone then, like all the light and air had been sucked out of the room in a single swipe.

I thought about what the boys had said, way back before I had left them. Years ago, that was now. It was hard to believe, but that was the reality of it. They all thought that George and I had the hots for each other, never saw the thing with Ringo coming.

Actually – that wasn't true. All the others saw the thing with Ringo coming except for Ringo himself, which was a little too reminiscent of our whole three second relationship. Honestly, you would think that from the way Ringo was sulking about that I had ripped his heart out, thrown it on the ground, and stomped on it for good measure. We had hardly had anything between us! And of course I didn't love him – we kissed once. ONCE. Once was hardly enough to know anything was real!

Still though, they had seen something between George and I, something that I hadn't even considered. Was that what I was doing now? Considering it?

NO. No, no, no. I was getting married, I was going to be true to Des. George was a friend – and a good friend at that. He was nothing more.

And then a startling thought occurred to me – Paul. Paul McCartney. And once I thought it, well, I couldn't un-think it. It wasn't just the thought of him that made me shiver, it was the fact that I had once considered myself hopelessly in love with him, too. Back before I met the Beatles, when I thought they were just figments (beautiful figments) of history. I thought Paul was the perfect man for me, and I was head over heels for him – as were shittons of people, I suspect.

But the startling thought was this: if I could think that I loved Paul, think that I loved Ringo, even for a second consider the fact that I had something with George…could I ever really love Des?

The door banged open suddenly. John stood in the doorway, a woman seemingly sealed to his body through their lips. His hands entangled in her hair and she let out a soft moaning sound that seemed to emanate from some body part that my body apparently didn't contain because I have never in my life made a sound like that.

"TAKE ME!" she screamed at the top of her lungs, separating herself from him with a loud suctioning noise that sounded quite painful.

That was when things began to get awkward for me.

I cleared my throat loudly as I had done earlier with George, but John didn't seem to hear me. Either that, or he was ignoring me and trying to subject me to one of the most inhumane forms of torture that exist on this planet. As soon as those words were out of her mouth, the girl jumped into the air – like, completely vertically – and latched her legs around John's torso.

He didn't smile. His eyes never wavered from what appeared to be her nose (maybe John Lennon had a secret nose fetish?) and his hand worked quickly at the back of her shirt.

Oh, wait. She wasn't wearing a shirt.

"John," I said in a voice that I hoped was firm and assertive like they taught us in peer mediation in eighth grade. "Could you please stop that?"

It was like I was sitting in a sound vacuum and the only thing that John could hear were the girl's insistent sounds (they were almost ape-like, like her vagina was trying to speak to John and all that could be heard was a dull echoing sound) (or maybe it was more like Mongolian throat singing, but in tunnel) (or something). Perhaps the reason that he continued kissing her was, in fact, that he couldn't hear those repulsive sounds. Who knew?

Yup. There went her bra.

That was enough. I stood up suddenly, trying to make enough noise as possible. "JOHN," I said, still trying to maintain my assertiveness and not trying to let my voice go over the edge with blatant aggression. "I'M GOING TO NEED YOU TO STOP TAKING OFF HER CLOTHES."

I knew he heard me that time, because as he mashed his face up against hers his eyes strayed over to where I indignantly stood. His mouth spread into an infuriating smirk as she quickly sent her kisses down his neck. If she heard me, she really didn't give a shit that I was here. She leaned her weight into John, forcing him against the wall next to the bathroom, and shook her tangle of hair over her bare shoulders.

"THIS IS REALLY UNCOMFORTABLE FOR ME," I informed him, not able to keep my voice from taking on a shrill note. I took a hesitant step forward. I didn't really want to view this situation from such a close vantage point, but I really felt the need to stop what was going on here. I took another step forward, and then another. John didn't notice, and neither did the girl…not even when I stood up on tiptoe and said, "As your granddaughter, I don't feel this appropriate."

It was like the girl full-on spit out John's lips. She turned and looked at me for the first time, still perched in John's arms and half-naked. "Granddaughter?" she repeated skeptically. As though I were just some random fangirl that somehow got into the great John Lennon's hotel room – kind of like her?

"Yes."

She turned instead to John, a laugh pursed on her lips. His eyes were closed tightly, and he looked more exhausted than I had ever seen him. 'I just needed this' was what his face read to me, and for a split-second I felt bad. But then I remembered his wife back home, and his little boy, and the countless number of girls he had used in the past. I did not feel so bad then.

The girl's smile faded, and she slowly slipped down off of John's chest. She seemed to realize for the first time where she was, who John was, how she was dressed. The bra that she had previously flung away couldn't have gotten into her body faster if she'd been on fire.

"This is way too fuckin' weird," she informed us both.

"You're telling me," John mumbled, reaching up to run two hands through his mushroom-head full of hair. When the door closed, he let his hands slap to his thighs. Pissed, tired, and perhaps slightly buzzed. That's the way he looked.

I was triumphant.

He sucked in a deep breath, then heaved himself away from the wall. "You're a real bitch, you know that, A.J.?"

"I believe I've been told that a few times," I said, watching as he strode across the room and tugged open his bureau. "What are you looking for?"

"Lube."

"OH, MY GOD."

"Well," he said indignantly, "I am SORRY and I wasn't actually going to resort to such things but thanks to you I'm going to have to. So if you could – " And then he literally – and I shit you not – shooed me.

It was like an invitation for me to blow up on him. "Do you think that I just broke up your little…little…_thing _there for my health?"

"Heh," he chuckled, face buried in a drawer. "Still a prude, I see."

"Fuck you," I said easily, flipping him a rather rude gesture and forgetting for a moment that this was actually my grandfather that I was talking to. I would never get over that, I didn't think. Any warm feelings that I had felt for him within the past couple of days were washed away. More than ever, I did not want to ask him to tell me this story.

He nodded, as though this request could easily be complied to. John slammed the drawer shut, held up his mini-tub of Vaseline like it was fucking Simba and then nodded toward the door. "Well, if you didn't break up my little thing – " he airquoted that, the son of a bitch " – for your health, then why did you do it? Because I have business to attend to." And then he indicated something going on in his pants that I really, really, REALLY don't want to reflect upon.

"You never finished telling me that story." Getting right down to it.

He sighed, as though I was the biggest headache he had going on in his life at the moment. "George was gonna do that."

"George said he couldn't finish it, because he could only tell the part where you stole my grandma away from him." I sent an accusing glare at him, making it very clear whom I WISHED was my grandpa these days.

"George was a pussy and that was not my fault."

I wanted to just hit him so bad then. Like, nothing that would bruise too bad, just maybe aimed at like his ribs or his Achilles' tendon. Something really, really painful. "Can you tell me the story, or not?"

He thought about this for a moment, rubbing the little tub of Vaseline between his hands in great, deep, extremely creepy thought. Finally, he looked straight at me, a big smile on his face. "Tomorrow, breakfast. Nine thirty."

There was something about his smile that I did not trust. Not one bit. "What's the catch."

"Oh," he said carelessly, "there's no catch. But sometime before you leave, I'm going to call in a favor. And you are going to respond to that favor with delight and ease and we are not going to have problems like we did last time."

"Fine," I hissed, though I didn't like these terms one bit. What harm was it to him to tell me a fucking story? It wasn't like I was asking him to keep a secret, like last time. It wasn't like I was asking him to…I don't know…perform a show naked! Sure, maybe it would suck just a tiny bit because he didn't like to talk about her, but so what? He had to talk about it sometime or he would most likely go completely batshit crazy.

John smiled like this was the most delightful thing on Earth. "Great. See ya bright and early, my dearest grandbaby."

He made me so fucking sick sometimes.

**OKAY MY FRIENDS. That is it for today. (See, look! I updated this month, just like I said I would!) As of yesterday, I became eerily obsessed with Fanfiction again, and I really want to get to know all of you. So message me, tell me what stories I should read, anything. I want to get back in touch in the world of Beatles fanfics. ALSO. There is some important information that I should be telling you all. SUCH AS: If you want to know what I'm up to writing-wise, I have a fucking blog. Like, for serious. I'm Paperback Writer on Blogger (or Blogspot, it's pretty much the same thing now). I'd love for you guys to check that out, because I'm going to try and update it a few times a week.**

**This is much more important, so if you read nothing else PLEASE READ THIS THANK YOU. I'm going to be doing a(nother) collaboration story for this fandom at the end of the summer, and I am not yet going to reveal who my partner shall be (in case things fall through, which would break my heart but yeah, shit happens), and if you want to vote on things regarding the NEW story, please look on my Fanfiction profile. **

**Once again, I cannot say this enough: I am eternally grateful to all of you, and I love you a lot. Like, a lot. Review pleeeeeeeeasssseeee! :^)**


	10. No One Compares With You

I didn't think that I would actually see John the next morning at breakfast. For whatever reason, a small part of me actually hoped the he would forget. But, no. Like clockwork, he strolled into the dining hall, his hair slightly damp and flopping on his head and his eyes hidden behind a pair of dark sunglasses. Instead of his usual suit and tie, he wore a plain white tee shirt and a faded pair of jeans. His hoity toity jaunt, however, and self-serving smirk were still in place. He probably never went out without them.

"Ah, A.J.!" he called out across the room, his voice masked with a deep, posh accent. "My favorite girl! And how are you this fine morning?"

I cast my eyes up at him, not even bothering to remove my nose from the menu that was held up to it. "Shut it, John."

"John?" he repeated jovially, chuckling lowly. "I know no John."

I rolled my eyes as he pulled the chair out and sat himself down at the table, removing the napkin and shaking it out before placing it on his lap. He clasped his hands together, stuck his elbows on the table, and then proceeded to lean in towards me with his chin on his knuckles.

"Story time?" I asked hopefully, wanting nothing more than to be done with this and go home.

He nodded shortly, dropping his act once I was the only person within earshot. "Right. And where did ole Georgie Boy leave off?"

"Your first date."

His back immediately stiffened, and he leaned away from me. "Oh."

"Is that…a problem?" I crossed my arms in front of my chest. Obviously it was a fucking problem. I knew it. I just knew it. John would never – not in a million years – talk about something so personal with me without making me pay dearly for it.

However, he just shrugged at my words, his body relaxing slightly. He looked over my shoulder coolly, and I could see that he was clenching his jaw. "I'm just," he began slowly, as though he were choosing each word carefully before saying it, "not surprised that George wouldn't want to tell you that story."

"Me either," I agreed. "But it was a long time ago."

John sighed, letting out a long, steady stream of coffee breath into my face. What a sweetie. "I don't think you really understand. I mean, how could you understand? It's not like you really have a…clear perception of her. Maggie Mae, I mean. You didn't know her like we did. You couldn't have. Eh…"

"You're rambling," I informed him, dropping my arms to my sides. I glanced around me. Already, we were drawing interested looks from passersby. I could almost read their thoughts: is that…no…it could be…I heard him say his name wasn't…but look at his face!...it has to be…maybe not…but who's that girl?

He let out another breath, leaning back in his chair and moving to take off his sunglasses. Then he seemed to remember where he was; he set his palm back on the table, the fingers of which twitched uselessly. His foot tapped on the ground. I watched his temples as his jaw clenched and unclenched.

"Okay," he said. He put a hand to his face, let out a long stream of breath. "Okay. The thing about Maggie Mae that you don't understand is that she was different, she was special. That's something I admire in someone – it's a _necessity _for me you could say."

"How was she so different?"

"She didn't like me." John's eyes widened; he sounded exasperated, as though he was still trying to figure it out. "Or the other boys."

"Okay?"

"She had this deep, guttural Irish accent…"

"Yes, she was from Ireland."

"And sometimes I just wanted to put her in my pocket. You know? When something is that tiny?"

I furrowed my eyebrows, studying John intently. His eyes had taken on a kind of dreamy, sailor-in-love sort of look. The truth was, I did know all these things about my grandmother. I knew she had an accent, I knew she didn't like people – any one, really, that most people would find pleasant. And obviously I knew she was tiny, for she had been so kind as to toss me that trait, too.

Despite all these things, what I was currently mystified about John was that he had sunken into a kind of stupor. A drooling, floppy, boyish sort of bashfulness.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" I asked after a straight minute of silence, not able to take it anymore.

He immediately snapped out of it, leaning back in his chair and refocusing his eyes on me. "You don't forget your first love. That's all."

Neither of us said anything for a little while, both of us thinking if this was necessary true. For me, I wouldn't really know. Who was my first love? The only two boys I had ever had remote sexual contact with were Des and Ringo – and Ringo was the briefest affair imaginable. I didn't know I loved Des until a few weeks before he proposed to me, and even then I wasn't sure. I loved him. I did. But…I worried. Because how did you know that you were in love? Wasn't it supposed to just be instinctual? I didn't know what my instincts were saying. But they had told me to say yes to him, so that had to mean something.

John, as it happened, was thinking about the fact that those were the truest words he had spoken in years. He was also thinking about how A.J. – frustrating, self-righteous, infuriating A.J. – brought out the truth in him like no one else could. The girl sitting across from him…she was the closest thing to a sense of family that he had ever had. Sure, there were the brief days with Julia, the painful ones with Mimi. But those two canceled each other out, simply because they made him so feel so oppositely.

He often thought about Cynthia, about how sad he was that he hardly saw his son. Maybe with him he could feel the way he did around A.J. He never had time to find out. What he did know was that he liked the feeling – liked that he was being looked up to, liked that he had a blood connection with something.

"She was your first love," I eventually said, my voice slightly distant, "but you knew Cynthia before you left for Hamburg."

"Yes."

"You're a man-whore."

"I wouldn't say that."

"What would you say?"

"I would say," he replied easily, "that I can only love one person at a time."

Suddenly, I felt very sad for the man sitting across from me. How damaged he must be, how sad he must feel. I thought about the empty hole in the pit of my stomach that had seared in when I left Ringo all those years ago, and I thought about how that hole was probably in John's heart, too. But it was probably ten times bigger, so big that it almost consumed him. I thought about how hard it must be to love someone for him, how hard it would be to let them in for fear of that hole opening up a little farther.

"How very deep," I said, shrugging off the comment like it didn't have any effect on me. "You should write songs."

"Gee whiz, no one's ever told me that, mister!"

I smiled. "Tell me that God damn story, will you?"

…

John and my first date was – of course – a tour of the late night city life of Hamburg. It was the world John lived in, and simply the one that I inhabited. I heard stories, of course, but I always had little desire to venture out into those parts of town. Hamburg was a rough city in itself, so that had to say something for the sketchier parts of it.

He took me to a club. I was expecting for it to either be a strip joint (hey, I wouldn't put it past him) or his own band's venue, but I was rather surprised to find that it was somewhat like what I had remembered back home. The walls were simple, white, decorated with signatures of bands that had made it big or celebrities that had visited. There was a light, smoky haze throughout the room; it was intoxicating, sultry, so unlike the smoggy clouds of putrid smoke that filled the earlier evening places.

John stopped at the entrance, surveying the room with his beady black eyes. "First stop," he murmured to me.

A band was setting up on stage; they were nearly identical to every band that I had seen thus far on my trip. There was the greasy, ducktail styled hair. The leather jackets. The studded black boots. It was so typical. But John seemed so sure of himself as he led me past the bar and to an actual table.

"Dinner," he announced. "Dinner comes first on dates."

I didn't know what to say, so I sat down across from him. There was a brief pause as I considered the fact that I had never – not once – eaten dinner at a club in Hamburg, let alone had a man buy it for me.

I leaned forward on my elbows, blinking up at him like Val had taught me back when I was just fourteen and learning what boys were. "This band?" I asked, raising my eyebrows. "Is that why we're here."

He surveyed me, his eyes flicking over my flirty position with absolutely no readable expression. "Dancing," was all he said.

"I thought we were going to eat?"

"Sure," he said, "you're going to eat. But mostly dancing."

I raised an eyebrow. "I don't know what you – "

"Just wait," was all he said.

Ten minutes later, just when I was starting to feel a little bit like a waiter was never going to come, a plate was slid in front of me. I couldn't recognize a single thing on it, except for what appeared to be French fries. But even those looked mottled; I got the sense for the first time that I had stepped outside the realm of Little England that I was so accustomed to in Hamburg. I was in Germany, I realized for probably only the second time since I had actually arrived. It was a strange feeling, to be put out of my comfort zone so suddenly. Very unsettling.

I couldn't place exactly whether I liked it, or not.

"There ye are, princess," John chirped, looking immensely pleased with himself.

Gingerly, I picked up my fork and stabbed around at the unidentifiable vegetable. "What the hell is this supposed to be? And don't call me _princess_."

"Potatoes," he answered curtly, as though the mere thought of me not knowing what the mushy orange stuff in front of me was sickened him. "Princess," he added as an afterthought, accompanying it with a small smirk.

"I'm not a fucking princess and these ain't no fucking potatoes," I snarled, feeling my anger mounting. Who was this guy? What exactly was he playing at?

Just as I was about to throw my napkin and storm back the way we had just come, a glass of wine was placed in front of me. I say glass – what it really resembled was a goblet. Something I imagined they drank out of around the sixteenth century. This completely threw me off guard; we were going to drink wine? On a date? In Hamburg? While seeing a band? And drinking out of Victorian age chalices? In what seemed to be an upscale restaurant? None of it added up.

So thrown off guard was I that I completely forgot about throwing down my napkin and storming from whence I came. All I could think about was how horribly mismatched all of this seemed to be; and, of course, how suddenly it came upon me.

John was smirking away, the self-indulgent bastard. Never had I ever experienced a man that loved and hated himself more than John Lennon. "All girls want to be princesses," he said in an off-hand way, as though I wasn't angry with him at all.

All I could do was stare and wonder what, exactly, was going on. "Not me."

"Sure you do. You're just like any other girl, aren't you? You want to live in a big house, with a nice protective fence and a watch dog. You want a knight in shining armor to sweep you off your feet, to kiss you and carry you over the threshold and provide for you for the rest of your days. You want a thousand screaming brats at your heels, you want fine jewelry. You want to be loved and adored and given the entire world."

"No."

"You can't deny it; hell, I want it, too, now that we're talking about it." His mouth curved up a little at the end, creating a crooked, wickedly sly smile that set off an unexpected pang in my chest. "But most of all you want a happily-ever-after."

"I don't," I said with complete confidence, drawing myself up.

"Sure you do, you're a fucking princess just like the rest of them."

"I don't believe in happily ever after."

"My ass."

I shrugged. "Don't believe me, do believe me. I don't care. But I'm telling you what I'm telling you, and that's that there's no such thing as a happily-ever-after. And even if there was, I sure as hell wouldn't want one."

"Ah, a cynic?"

"No," I said, "I just prefer to be sad than bullshitted."

"My Potato Princess," he said with a sigh, lowering his head onto his folded hands. It was then that I noticed there was no plate of food in front of him. Mine was semi-demolished, as I found any small space in the conversation as an excuse to shovel forkfuls of the strange orange potatoes into my mouth.

"I know everything about potatoes," I said with a mouthful, unable to help myself. "And these are not fucking potatoes."

John glanced down at her plate. "You seem to be very upset with them. You know they can hear you, right?"

"Potatoes don't have ears."

"Ah, but these here? These are special. Orange, they are. It means they were grown with eardrums in place of spuds."

I raised my eyebrows. "Fuck off."

He pretended to be affronted. "Fuck off yourself, ye know-it-all. Just so happens that these very potatoes can hear and they're sick and tired of you. They're planning a full-scale rebellion as we speak."

"I s'pose they can talk now, too?"

"Talking potoates?" He scoffed. "Now that would just be ridiculous."

I put my fork down carefully on the plate, looking him dead in the eyes and considering him. What was I doing here? To say that I was having a good time was a stretch – we didn't get along, that was clear. I didn't particularly like him. So why did I find my face suddenly cracking into a grin? Why was a small giggle bubbling from my lips? Why, when the band picked up their instruments and let out their warm-up notes, did I allow this strange, impossible man sweep me from my chair and lead me to the dance floor?

It was only from that vantage point that I really got a chance to see the band. They looked strangely familiar to me… The lead singer had a left-handed bass strapped across his neck, and his round hazel eyes were studying the room with a sleepy and vague curiosity. Then he spotted us.

Until the very moment he raised his thumb and grinned wicked at John, I couldn't place who he was. Then I knew.

George was slightly behind him, his eyes trained on his guitar. My heart panged, and suddenly it all made sense to me. The bands ate for free in Hamburg – that was part of the deal. Everyone knew that. How would a starving musician be able to afford a place like this? He wasn't being charming – he was being cheap. And this "date" was just one of his gigs.

"John – " I started to say, intent on telling him exactly what I thought of his "date". But before I could get the words out, the music started.

It wasn't the same music I was used to hearing from John's band. It was slower, smoother, and when Paul put his lips to the microphone, what came out was one of the prettiest sounds her ears ever had the pleasure to hear. They were versatile, I had to give them that.

I met John's eyes, and he was smirking that stupid smirk again. He reached his arms out formally, his back pin straight and his chin turned up in a debonair attitude. My resolve melted, and for the second time that night I found myself doing something unexpected; I took his hand in mind, and allowed his other hand to find my waist.

We circled awkwardly like that for a moment, and I was looking anywhere but his eyes. Then – abruptly – the song changed. The ballad wasn't stiff anymore. It was sweeter, a love song.

John probably wrote it, I thought absently. For some other girl, from some other time. And even then I knew – knew it in my heart of hearts – that he would write a thousand other little love songs, for a thousand other girls. I had known him only for a few weeks, and even in that time I couldn't say I knew him well. But it was easy to read him. It was easy to tell what was on the surface.

He was a cliché. So perfectly crafted that it had to have been on purpose. The realization made me wonder: who exactly was John Lennon? And why didn't he want anyone to know him?

John's challenge had been catching me, I thought. But now he has me. Will he want me anymore? It didn't really matter – because now I had my own challenge. Now there were two playing the game.

"Maggie," he said softly, so softly that it broke me out of my thoughts completely.

I looked up at him, took a half step forward, tipped my chin upwards. When did he get so tall? Or was I really that short? "It's Maggie Mae," I said, in the same tone.

"Ah, of course." He smiled, reaching a hand up and cupping my face. "How could I forget? Maggie Mae, my angry little Potato Princess."

They say everything comes in threes. Perhaps that's why I let myself do something again that I didn't know I wanted to do. Perhaps that's why I kissed him then.

"I'm not a princess," I whispered.

And he smiled, and pressed me closer to him. I rested my head on his chest, listening to the slow beat of his heart and feeling the matching one in my chest.

…

John paused, his long fingers wrapped around his mug of tea and a faint smile on his face. He ducked his head, then picked it up to look at me. His fringe fell into his eyes, and I knew that should make me feel something. It should be cute to me, I realized. I should be swooning. Instead, I gave him a plainly doubtful face and said:

"That's it?"

He shrugged. "That's it."

That was frustrating beyond belief. It didn't add up, not at all. "So you mean to tell me," I said in a slow, measured tone, "that she hated you. She thought you arrogant and not good for her. And then she randomly decided to accept your invitation to a date even though she actually really knew what you wanted from her? I presume that sex was what this was all really about, anyways."

He reached forward, tapping my nose. "Ah, A.J., you clever little girl. Of course it was."

I threw my hands up. "I asked for a story! I wanted to know how it happened! How you changed her mind – how she changed your mind! That was just…that was just nothing."

That didn't sit right with him. "It wasn't nothing."

"It didn't make sense."

"A.J.," he snapped, exasperated, "it's not supposed to make sense! It just happens, okay? There isn't any rhyme or reason to it, there's no equation. There's not a single split second that you realize that you want to spend the rest of your life with someone! That night – on my first date with your grandmother – " (that drew some interesting looks from the tables directly adjacent) " – I thought I had just won myself a long game of chess. That's what it felt like. But then we were dancing and she kissed me and put her little head on my heart and I just…"

I gave him a skeptical look. "You fell in love?"

"I felt differently about her. Differently than I had ever felt about any other girl." He took a casual sip of his tea, then stood up abruptly. "You'll understand when you meet the right someone."

Without thinking about it, I looked down at the ring on my finger, the one that told me that I belonged to someone. The ring that declared to the world that I was in love. When I looked up, John was already stalking out of the room. I watched as he dug in his pocket, pulled out a cigarette and then a lighter, and then brought it to his lips.

Even from where I sat, I could see his hand shake uncontrollably as he flicked the flame.

**Yes. I know. I know, I know, I know. There's not even an excuse. I can't even like…nope, yeah, I don't know. Time got away with me. I wrote the first half of this in September, and then I rehashed it in January. January, guys. JANURARY. I used to write chapters for my other stories in like five seconds (definitely not an exaggeration). And, fuck me, I wish I still could! The reason I didn't write a beginning AN was because the one I had originally written was from September. And like… that's rough! That is a rough. time. Maybe I should have kept it in for humor's sake – I'm pretty sure it said something about not having updated in a long time. **

**If you still read this, you deserve a God damn prize. I'm serious. Name it, I'll give it to you (as long as it doesn't exceed, like, a dollar plus shipping and handling. You know, I'm only sixteen! I don't exactly shit money!) If I ever slip into a mysterious disappearance again, and you want to jolt me out of it and/or give me some words of encouragement, you can do so either on this site OR (something I check a deal more frequently) my blog. The link for that is in my profile.**

**I love you, I love you, I love you. And THANK YOU if you took the time to read this. A review would be wonderful. Have a wonderful day, week, month, year. Let's be honest: I can't exactly make any promises about my next update. :^) YAY BEATLES!**


	11. Some Have Changed

**Well. It hasn't even been that long since I last updated! I'm pretty proud of myself on that front. On the other front – the actual quality of this chapter – not so much. But it is a necessary evil! And…well…for those of you who have been begging for Ringo to come back, here he is. Although probably not in the form you want him to be. Pay attention less to what is said, and more to what is not said. And that is all **_**I **_**shall say about that. Happy reading!**

I wandered up over the stairwell, still lost in thought. I couldn't shake the image of John's turned back, his shaking hands. And I couldn't shake his words, either; I should know when I meet the love of my life. I should feel it somewhere deep, deep in my bones.

The reason I was in the past had nothing to do with my love life, but – just like last time – it was becoming that. Unfortunately. As though there wasn't enough stressful things going on in my life. Speaking of stress –

As I walked down the hall toward the boys' rooms, who did I bump right into?

With all her clothes on, I didn't recognize the girl right away. I usually credited myself for having a good memory when it came to faces, though, and when I saw hers I knew that she was from somewhere. But how would I recognize a girl from the 60s? It wasn't like I made regular appearances there. The only people I really knew were fairly recognizable by over half the world's population.

But then I saw it; in the turn of her hips as she sauntered down the hallway, in the way she shook back her hair and looked vaguely pleased with herself.

"Hello," she said politely as she passed, which I had to admit I didn't expect.

I maintained eye contact with her as she moved past me, daring her to remember who I was. I saw the recognition flitter across her features before I let out a small, "Hi."

"You're American," she noted, stopping in her tracks. Her brows were furrowed and, just like me, she was trying to figure it out. Only I was one ahead of her.

"You're wearing a lot of clothes."

It was amusing how the repercussions of my words echoed across her features a few times before she finally settled on an emotion; embarrassed, then shocked, then pissed, then confused for a little while, before she was decidedly gleeful.

That's right: gleeful.

"Oh!" she said brightly. "You're the girl who knows John Lennon!"

"Yes," I replied, not even sure what I was still doing here in the middle of the hallway. "You're the girl who wanted to."

She let out a high, tinkling laugh. For the first time, I really looked at her face. She was stunning, simply put, and suddenly I didn't feel so confident. It had been a really long time since I was in high school and such environments where I associated extremely pretty girls with being huge bitches. I sort of forgot in the moment that it wasn't always the case. To me, the face and the laugh fell short of the sluttiness and ultimate bitch label I had already put on her.

"Right, right," she said, whereas I would have said something along the lines of 'fuck off'. "Well, you might have won that round and scared me away, but I sure got my vengeance." And then – Lord Jesus, of all things – she winked at me.

I was starting to feel a bit uncomfortable.

I was also very confused. She couldn't have met that she slept with John, since he was at breakfast with me. So it could only mean…

Slowly, I turned my head to look at the door. Then I looked back at her. Then back at the door. Speaking to the great wood plank I let out a small, "Oh."

"Mhm," she chirped, repositioning her bag of her shoulder, "better than I thought, too. But, anyway you have it, it's love with a Beatle."

The way she said "love" made me visably cringe. Not because of the awkwardness of it (okay, yes, slightly because of the awkwardness…call me immature) but because it was one of my friends behind that door. And I didn't know which it was.

They'd had plenty of sex when I was around, and probably had ten times more when I wasn't. It was a known fact. So why did I feel so utterly creeped out?

It might have had to do with the fact that before I even opened the door, I knew who it was going to be. Hadn't I been in almost this exact same situation before? Hadn't I learned my lesson?

Apparently not, because after I dismissed the girl with a polite laugh and a nod of my head, I brought my fist up to rap at the door. When a muffled answer came my way, I eased it open.

He was standing near the bureau, his back to me. All he had on was a pair of tighty whities and one thick, woolen sock. The room was dark and stank of alcohol and cigarettes and stale perfume. The scent chocked me, though even as I gagged I knew I had no right to. This was his life now. This was what I had chosen as much as he.

"Hey," I said, my voice strained from the want not to say it. What I wanted to do was go in and sit down on the bed and have him say it to me. Have him act like I was still a person, not some horrible monster that ruined his life. I wanted him to treat me like he used to.

He turned around slowly. There was a lipstick print on the base of his neck, and another one slightly off-center on his chest. His eyes were hazy, unfocused, and even without him speaking I could tell he was drunk; he was holding another drink in his hand, and I wondered if he had even gone to sleep last night.

"Hi," Ringo said shortly.

Just like I wanted to, I moved into the room and sat down on the bed. He watched me all the way. I tried not to think about what had occupied these sheets not too long ago, and I tried not to remember that harsh words he had spoken to me also not too long ago. I looked up at him expectantly.

Heaving a big sigh, he came and sat next to me. For a few minutes, we just stayed like that. Both of us stared down at our legs, splayed out in front of ourselves in a rather defeated way. We both could feel it, I'm sure. We both knew. The amount of resignation between us surmounted higher than the amount of determination we had ever felt.

"I don't know," I started slowly, breaking the silence, "what I'm even doing here. In your room, I mean, not the 60s. But I do know that I miss you."

Ringo didn't say anything, but his drooping, bloodshot eyes continued to study his bare legs.

"I miss you," I repeated. "Why can't that be enough to tell me anything?"

He crinkled his nose, but still remained silent. He looked deep in thought, and fairly disgusted with what he was thinking. It was probably about me. He hated me. I needed to accept that; but it was so hard to think about someone you love – or once loved – hating you. It was supposed to be the opposite.

Shouldn't I hate him? Shouldn't I hate him for making me feel guilty for making the right choice? It wasn't like he gave me a whole lot of time to make the decision, but any way you had it he rejected me. He laughed in my face and I told myself he was an asshole even though we both knew what he was; he was human. He was defending himself. I didn't give him a whole lot of time to make the decision, either.

"I'm confused," I admitted to him. "And it's all fucking John's fault."

I remembered then how easily the conversation used to flow between the two of us; whether it was out loud or in our heads, we could carry on for hours. We got each other. And looking at Ringo now… I didn't understand him. Not for a second. This wasn't who he was supposed to be, this wasn't the way he was supposed to turn out.

I didn't want to be the cause of his alcoholism.

I wished things were different. I wished I hadn't made the mistake of falling for him – for anybody, for that matter, in a different time period from that which I lived. I was eighteen years old then. _Eighteen_. Still in high school and still naïve enough to think I could be in love with the only boyfriend I'd ever had.

"It's not all fucking John's fault," I amended, taking Ringo's silence as accusatory. "It's a lot of my fault. I want to be loved, Ringo." The words came out of my mouth before I could even think them, but I knew they were true. I'd been denying it all along, but there they were. "My grandpa – Doctor Ryan – he told me he sent me back here for a reason. To meet you all, to get the greatest friends in the entire planet. To fall in love and learn a lesson. Well, I learned it. I thought I learned it. But I never really did anything about it, did I?"

Ringo heaved in a great breath then. He picked up his hands, put them to his face, and bent his neck. I stared at him. But no matter how hard I willed it to, my heart didn't break for him.

"I want to be loved," I repeated, "and I've been trying to be loved for a very long time. Why can't I? What's the matter with me?"

He suddenly brought his hands down with a very hard slap. There were tears in his blue, bulbous eyes, but there was also anger. A feistiness which I had only ever read about. "You bitch!" he said, and the words seared.

"What? I – "

"What are you talking about?" he demanded. He stood up very suddenly, the weight shift from the bed making it groan. Standing before me in his underwear, with his hair completely amuck and his face ruddy from the night, I got the first good look at Ringo since I'd arrived back. And if I needed any confirmation about what I concluded before, I certainly had it.

"I love you!" he declared, pounding his fist into his palm. "Me! I do! And probably that boy who gave you that ring – he loves you to! It's you – it's you who is the bitch who plays us all along. Me, him, Chuck… Countless others, probably, too! I wanted to give you a second chance, but why? So you could do it again?" He shook his head, and it was with pure venom that he spat his next words. "No. No, I won't let you."

Now it was my turn to become indignant. He was wrong – he'd had this speech ready for me for years, probably, and now here I was. But I had a speech for him, too.

"Will you pull yourself out of your God damn FUCKING PIT OF DESPAIR?" My voice rose several octaves before I could stop it, and he looked at me gravely. I had his full attention now. "You do not _love_ me, Ringo. Maybe you could have. Maybe we could have fallen in love with each other. But I was eighteen years old when I came here, and I was hardly a month older when I left. You don't know me, and I don't even really know you.

"I thought I did. Oh, yes. But now, coming back here, I'm realizing that I never really did. I thought 'That Ringo, that's not my Ringo. He's changed.' But people don't really change, Rings. They just progress, and as they grow older and experience more layers are added to themselves. I know that the boy I knew is standing right in front of me. I can hear it in your laugh, and I can see it in those eyes. Those God damn blue eyes that I thought I would love forever.

"John told me that I would know. When I fell in love with someone, I would know. Just like he knew about Maggie Mae, and still knows today. I'm not a bitch." I shook my head, tired, resigned. I didn't want to be having this conversation any more. "I'm not a bitch, I'm just telling you the truth. And I'm sorry it hurts you, but you have absolutely no idea how much it hurts me, too. I don't want a second chance at…at whatever we had going on. I want a second chance at knowing you. Because I really feel like I don't anymore."

He gaped at me. Never before had he seemed so small, so inconsequential yet so huge a part of my life. Ringo was one of my layers – I, too, was a different person from before. But love isn't just about one of the layers. It's about all of them. It's about the sum of them. And it's impossible to understand without first knowing your story.

"A.J.," he finally said, so softly that I almost couldn't hear him. I stood up, crossed the room to where he was standing, and planted my feet in front of his. "A.J. I'm sorry. I'm…I'm just…" He inhaled deeply again. "I'm a mess. I'm a mess and I don't even understand why, really."

There it was. There was the person I thought I knew. Just that small piece of himself made my heart pang, and I felt that insatiable need to reach out for him, to have him back as mine. I could if I really wanted to. I could take him as the person he used to be.

But it would be wrong, especially because he had evolved. Like it or not, this was the person he had become. And I didn't love it when he drank, or when he became so dark and angry. But that was part of him now, and if I really loved him I had to love all of him.

I pulled him into my arms, and I felt his head rest on the crook of my shoulder. He wouldn't cry, I knew, but he would once I left. Men.

Still, though, I held him. For what seemed like hours, we stood there in the center of his room. Then, finally, he picked up his head and pulled away from me.

"That was closure," he said.

I nodded. "That was closure."

He stood quietly for a moment, looking again deep in thought. "A.J.," he finally said, "why are you here?"

"In this room, or in this time?"

He smiled, and I couldn't help but smile back at him. It was only an echo of the once uncontrollable laughter that would spill from our lips when we as much as looked at each other, but it was still something. We were working on it.

"In this time. I thought it was for me, but if that were the case you would have closed your eyes and disappeared minutes ago. Right?"

"I think what I need is the ending to a story," I said, and once I said it I knew it to be true. "And I think this conversation proves that the story isn't mine."

…

A few hours later, I slipped back into the room I had been sharing with Paul and George, the two Beatles that at the present I was most comfortable with. George was absent, but Paul was sitting on his bed. He had his guitar on his lap, and a notebook placed in front of him. The page was blank.

He looked up as I entered. "Hi," he chirped, his smile radiant as always.

I went and sat on George's bed carefully, feeling strangely buoyant. Like a huge weight had lifted off my chest. "Hi," I replied. "Working on a song?"

He shrugged. "I'm meant to be."

"But?"

"But," he said, his smile fading slightly, "songs never seem to come to me when I expect them to."

A wave of tiredness hit me then. Even though I didn't know where George was, or whether he would be returning, I wanted to seep down into his bed and sleep there forever. The lights in the room were dim and the window was cracked just a fraction, so that cool air spilled in and mixed with the scent of cigarette smoke. It was oddly comforting, and it brought be back to the days of my little "bedroom" in the middle of the house that the boys rented back when they were just getting started.

Paul smiled at my sleepy eyes, which probably matched his natural ones at that point. He stood up and gestured to his bed. "Go ahead, I was thinking about going out anyways."

"You sure?" I rasped.

"Oh, yeah."

Gratefully, I forced myself to my feet and threw myself across the room. I landed in a pile dead center of his bed. I would have been content to sleep right there in that position, had he not made a clucking noise at me and crossed his arms over his chest.

"Paul," I said as he smoothed the covers by my feet and rested his guitar against the wall there. "Do you remember the first night I met you? When I fell asleep and you carried me all the way back to your house?"

He laughed. "You think I could forget that? That was the longest walk of my life!"

I smiled sleepily, blinking up at him through bleary eyes and not really knowing what I was saying anymore. "Thanks for that. You're my favorite Beatle."

"And you, my dear A.J., are my favorite twenty-first century girl."

"Aw, Paul. You're just saying that."

"Maybe. But you're one of them, at least."

I smiled into his pillow. "Hey – why did you think you'd be able to write a song tonight, anyways?"

I don't even know if my words were coherent, and the thought was only teetering on the edge of my mind. It wasn't important, anyways, and when I didn't hear the sound of his voice respond immediately I could feel myself start to drift away. I was in that sort of half-dream state where nothing really seems like reality but you're quite confident that you're not asleep and dreaming yet.

Paul stood there for a good few minutes, it turned out, before he finally answered my question. "Because my muse is back," was his reply, though I never heard it. I did, however, feel the slight pressure of his lips on my forehead, and hear the light creak as the door opened to suck him into the hallway.

I rolled over, smiling to myself. All around me was the sweet, spicy smell of spearmint. I vaguely remembered that it was my favorite smell in the world.

**Disclaimer: I don't actually know that Paul McCartney smells like spearmint. But, as it is my favorite scent in the world and I associate it with any person that I love, I thought it fitting for him. Oops, did I say the L-word? ;^) Geroge knows something youuuu don't know! Does winky-face George look slightly maniacal to anyone else? Like maybe he's plotting against me? I can't be sure. Leave me a review letting me know. ALSO please just review in general telling me what you thought about the chapter and where you think the story is going to go. There's not much left – probably only a few chapters – so get ready for the drammmaaaa and the surprise ending! It's a twist, lemme tell ya. **

**One last thing – if you want to know what I'm up to, what I'm currently reading, what I'm currently writing, or just my general musings on life, you should follow my blog on Blogspot, Paperback Writer. The link to that is in my profile. Thanks guys! Hope you enjoyed this update and the swiftness of it! **


	12. Think of Love

**I'm so proud of myself for the swiftness of my updates. Truly. Even if there isn't a regular schedule and I'm making up most of this chapter as I go along, who gives a fuck? You're still reading something and it's not 2 years from when I was supposed to put it up. WOOHOOOO go Catie. I'm on summer break now and one of my summer goals is to officially end this story. It'll probably be around the beginning of July, depending on how inspired I'm feeling. Also depending on how this chapter ends up taking course and how it goes over with you guys. I'm rambling – I'll stop now. Happy reading!**

I woke up with my head buried under a pillow, face-planted into Paul's bed. For a second I was confused, only half-awake and not really consciously aware of the reason that I awoke.

It didn't take me long to figure it out.

"A.J. A.J. A.J. A.J. A.J. A.J. A.J. A.J. A.J. A.J. A.J. A.J. A.J. A.J. A.J. A.J. A.J. A.J. A.J. A.J. A.J. A.J. A.J. A.J. A.J. A.J. A.J. A.J. A.J. A.J. A.J. A.J. A.J. A.J. A.J. A.J. A.J. A.J. A.J. A.J. A.J. A.J. A.J. A.J. A.J. A.J. A.J. A.J. A.J. A.J. A.J. A.J. A.J. A.J. –"

"WHAT?!"

Paul smiled down at me from the side of the bed, where he was perched with his legs crossed and a small cup of tea neatly tucked away on his lap. He took a sip of said tea with a smarmy flourish, then patted my leg. "Oh, good. You're up."

I could do nothing but glare at him, as my mind was too muddled with sleep to think of any swear words. He took this as a good enough sign as any to move on.

"Right." He rose to his full height, which seemed more impressive to me when I wasn't on my feet. He straightened the thin black tie and smoothed his crisp grey suit. Paul might have been completely friend-zoned to me, but that didn't mean I couldn't ogle occasionally at how fucking handsome he was. Like, truly. Congrats Mr. and Mrs. McCartney. You done good.

"The lads and I have a bit of a press conference this morning." He turned his back on me, fumbled around with something, and then returned bearing a steaming mug of coffee. He brandished this to me, and I took it gratefully. "You're to get up right this minute and head over to John's room."

I choked on my sip. "What?! And why the fuck would I do that?"

"Because I said so," he answered carelessly. "And because as much as I never want you to leave, it's time for you to go home."

I sat up in bed, holding the warm cup between my hands. He couldn't possibly know the real reason I was here, the reason that it was so imperative at this moment to hear Maggie Mae's story. And yet… There was something in the look he gave me then – a look that said "Anna Jean Rose, I don't buy your bullshit for a second and I never have" – that made me accept my defeat.

"I'll go," I said begrudgingly, "but I won't like it."

"I never said you had to."

I stood up, pulling my hair back into a ponytail with the ever-present elastic around my wrist. Draining the cup of coffee, I padded into the adjoining bathroom to try and find some mouthwash or a spare toothbrush. "You know," I said as I went, "if you don't want me here so bad, you could have thrown me out and me live as, like, a street urchin. Or made me stay in Ringo's room. You don't have to be so nice to me."

He leaned against the doorjamb to the bathroom, crossing his arms and watching me with that charming look of general amusement that he always wore. I tried to brush my teeth indifferently, but my face was hot where he was staring at it.

"Don't be mad," he said. He ran a hand through his hair absentmindedly. Past me would have had a minor stroke. "As much as you're a bother to me, you're my girl."

Wait, what? Where did that come from? "Aw, Paulie," I fake-cooed with a mouth full of foamy blue toothpaste. Some dribbled down my chin and landed on the white tee-shirt he had borrowed me. I made no move to stop it, feeling as though it rather completed my current look. "You know how to get the ladies."

His smile dropped now, and he pushed himself away from the door. Standing before me and looking down with those round, sleepy, impossibly hazel eyes, I suddenly had a strange feeling. Almost as though I'd been missing something for a long time. Like maybe I didn't know these people as well as I thought.

He raised one hand slowly, almost hesitantly. And then the great Paul McCartney – a man renowned for his appeal to women of all sorts and his general sexiness – licked his finger and rubbed the sticky blue trail of toothpaste off my chin.

"Not true," he said softly. "Only some ladies."

Oh. Ohhhhhhhh. I got it.

I took a step back from him, quickly turning and trying to look casual as I spit and rinsed my mouth and toothbrush. In reality, my heart was beating out of control. Not out of passion or previously unconscious desire. But out of anger. I'd done it again, hadn't I? What the fuck was it about these Beatles that made them actually attracted to me? Why couldn't boys in high school have liked me half as much?!

(Besides for Des, of course. Actually, now that I thought about it… I had the greatest tendency to make people that I didn't actually like in that way, like _me_ in that way. Or, at least, like me more than I liked them. Maybe that was the key. Maybe I should just never like anyone else again and then I'd find actual love. For fuck's sake.)

Paul was still standing where I'd left him, his hand hovering in the air and his face downturned. When I looked back at him, he dropped the hand and smiled again. Only this time, the smile wasn't real. I could tell.

"I better get to John's," I said nonchalantly, wiping my face with a towel and side-stepping around him all in one motion. "We're not gonna have that much time if you've already got this thing going on this morning…"

I was already reaching for the door – getting ready to run away, just like I always did – when he grabbed my hand. And it made sense, didn't it? Paul was always the one to save me, to sweep me off my feet and show me what it's like to actually care about someone. He was the one who taught me what love is through his music, and he was the one who wanted me to experience it for myself with Ringo years ago. But that's just what it was – years ago. And years can change a person, add layers to them and make them simultaneously more complicated and more wonderful.

I reflected before that you had to love all the layers to a person. And I loved Paul before – I loved his charming persona and his kind heart. I loved his gentlemanly mannerisms along with his affinity for females. This, though… This was a new Paul, one that I'd seen from far away so many times but never up close.

And I still felt the same.

I stared at our palms, intertwined. I couldn't say anything, because I was terrified of saying the wrong thing. But fuck, what was the right thing?! I had no idea.

"I'm sorry," he finally said. "I know this…isn't exactly what you need."

I laughed in spite of myself. "No. No, not exactly."

"And I'm not an idiot. I'm not Ringo. I've never kidded myself like you did in the beginning or he has for the past few years." He shrugged. "Timing is everything, huh?"

I couldn't help myself then; despite what I knew, despite every part of me trying to resist, I gave into it. To him. I turned and threw myself into his arms, my head on his chest and my arms wrapped around his slender body. Maybe I couldn't reciprocate exactly and maybe it wasn't on his usual standards, but it was all I could give him.

"Another time," he said softly in my ear, "another place. Different people. Maybe then. You're one of my best friends, A.J. And you deserve to be with someone who will treat you that way."

I released him from my grasp. I couldn't look him in the eye, couldn't think of anything to say. The first thing that came to mind was, "Long ago I knew someone and I thought I loved him, but now he's gone. Thank you for everything, Paul. I'll miss you. But I don't think I need you anymore."

Before he could say anything and make the situation worse, I turned and walked out of the room. There were tears springing in my eyes, and I knew that just because I was walking at the moment didn't mean I wasn't running away. But I had said all there was to be said, and I felt that he did too. It was time to go home.

John and Ringo's room was down the hall. I was about to enter it when Ringo stepped out, wearing the same sort of suit Paul was. He looked different from the night before; he was clean and well-groomed, of course, but it went beyond that. He looked…happy. Strangely so.

"Hi," I said awkwardly, not exactly sure how you greet someone in our situation.

"Hi," he said back. And then he leaned forward, kissed me on the cheek like he used to, and started off down the hall. "I'll see ya, A.J."

I stared after him, a mixture of feelings crowding my chest. "AYE!" I called after him just as he was about to round the corner for the stairs. He stopped, looking back at me. I couldn't read his expression from all the way where I was, but he didn't seem to be that turbulent Ringo. Again, I could feel the change in him. Almost like…

"I'm glad we're talking again," I said to him. He smiled. "And I'm glad we're not talking, too."

All those things that we used to not say to each other – the ones that were hindered by alcohol and repressed thoughts and over-indulged emotions – were slipping between us again. Ringo laughed. It was the sweetest sound I'd ever heard, and it brought with it a rush of nostalgia.

"Oh," he said, "get over yourself, A.J." And with that he was gone.

I stepped into John's room. He was sitting on his bed with a book in his hand, his back resting against the headboard and his long legs sprawled out before him. He looked up as he entered, then nodded to the door. "What the fuck did you to Ringo?"

I frowned. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that when he woke up this morning he _bounded_ from his bed. And he was singing in the shower." He gave me a serious look. "Did you fuck?"

"No!" Of course that would be his immediate assumption. "No, we just talked. It was sad and I miss him and he misses me, but… You know." I thought of what Paul said just a few minutes ago. "It's all about timing."

He looked at me suspiciously. "You look like you're about to cry."

"I'm not," I said coldly (but I was, of course).

"You fucking are."

I just held up my middle finger in response to this.

He rolled his eyes, sitting up a bit and tapping the bed in front of him. "Who's it over this time?"

"No one," I said, sitting down and crossing my legs. I looked him square in the face. "Because I'm not about to cry. I didn't come here to shoot the breeze with you, John. Obviously. I just want you to finish the story."

He looked at me like I was crazy. "Luv, that'll take me weeks!"

I shook my head. "I don't want to know her every move. I just want to know what it was that made you love her so much. Because I'm pretty confused on that in my own life and I just…I need some clarification."

John set his book down carefully. He weaved his fingers together, then carefully rested his chin on his knuckles. "Now. I've told you eight hundred bloody times. There's no one thing, one moment. I don't know what about that you can't get through your thick skull." I was about to rebuttal this with a stream of insults of my own, but he cut me off quickly. "But if it means getting you away from me quicker, I guess I'll try."

I raised my eyebrows in amazement. "Wait. What? You're not going to make this as difficult as possible for me? Holy shit, did you find God or something?"

He rolled his eyes. "I don't have time for your dull attempts at being a smart-ass, _Jean_."

"Okay, _Winston_, let's go then."

He cleared his throat, rolled his eyes to the ceiling, and then started to speak.

**Okay guys. I realize that was probably a bit of a strange chapter for you because 1) there was no George and there hasn't been George for a while, 2) there was a turn of events with Paul that…well…you all should have seen coming for a while, 3) Ringo is drastically different all of a sudden, and 4) I left you hanging with John. There will be more closure, trust me. WELL the next chapter is going to be entirely set in the past, and it is going to be narrated from John's POV (we haven't had a nice Beatles POV in a while, have we?). It'll probably be pretty awesome. I dunno. This story is winding down majorly (I'm predicting 2-3 more chapters) and for those of you who have stuck with it for the – what? 3 years I've been writing it? Holy shit I suck haha – I commend you and love you and hugs and kisses and George :^). Those of you who are relatively new – hello. This is George :^). **

**As always, if you want to talk to me about ANYTHING (books, Beatles, writing, pudding) feel free to PM me. And if you want to know what I'm getting up to these days as far as writing and general life musings go, you can always go over to my blog, Paperback Writer on Blogspot. Thanks again guys, and don't forget to shoot me a review!**


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